


but we do not know love

by shilu_ette



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Atobe is also a bastard, M/M, Multi, Ryoma is a bastard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 18:40:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5216474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shilu_ette/pseuds/shilu_ette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You do not get over some deaths; they devour you until you are left raging. Or; a threesome is never a good idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but we do not know love

 

Warnings: written sporadically over a course of ten months, may be choppy. 

 

000

His feet press upon the cold marble floor lightly; therein, he slouches and walks over to the white fridge and its silver knobs. Inside the cool air that he cringes at, he finds two eggs and cradles them. He hits them against the counter and pours the yolk on the pan that he must have taken out the night before. He watches the clear liquid bubble and turn white and he waits.

 

Enters Jiroh. Like a scene in a play, the morning sun illuminates his presence, and his contours are dark as his body absorbs the light. His face is unreadable, but Ryoma knows those eyes would be filled with sleep. Soft and wide eyes with a soft bum and baby skin. He is wearing a white shirt that has been wrinkled over the night. It is not easy to conjure up hatred so early in the morning but Ryoma manages.

 

“Eggs?” The voice is a whine. _Shut up,_ he thinks, but he only stirs the runny liquid, scraping the floor of the pan as to not make the washing unbearable. They do not have a dishwasher yet; it has been one week since the move.

 

“Ryoma-chan,” and arms embraces his torso. He tries to wriggle away from them. “Ryoma-chan, we had eggs for the past _week_. We need a change.” It is hard to whine when you are a twenty-five year old, and Jiroh manages. It is even harder to hear and tolerate it, which Ryoma perfects.

“Someone should go shopping then,” he says.

“You!” The arms squeeze. They must mean warmth, but to Ryoma it only comes off as a threat that fleas give to dogs. Jiroh is a flea.

 

000

 

They do not sleep together. It is absurd, Ryoma had stated on the first night, and said that he will sleep alone than be crammed with three reeking bodies.

“But I need warmth,” Jiroh had said with wide and fuckable eyes (to certain people, Ryoma thought) and twisted his hands together. “I need my pillow, or at least a stuffed animal.” It is absurd, the way this man talks like a child, but in the eyes of others they must mean something, because Keigo said, “Of course you can sleep with me, Jiroh,” and gave Ryoma a long-suffering look that conveyed a silent rebuke. Ryoma chose to ignore this.

 

From the start, Jiroh went down, something that Ryoma had never done and had explicitly said he would not do (“I don’t enjoy sucking cock,” he said over a cup of coffee, and Keigo almost spat his back out, managing, “I don’t think that’s the most enticing breakfast topic, Ryoma.”) and he enjoyed moaning and crying, and Ryoma had watched, dispassionately, clothed still. He had left that particular scene.

 

There were other scenes too, where mostly he was the voyeur, not because he got a kick out of it, but this concept of sharing was not his area, not when he thought everything was over, he and Keigo could have settled down and fought for all eternity, but a new name and face made everything muddled. So he watched and created his distance, and his separate bedroom was only one of the many.

 

000

 

“I never see you,” Wakashi says over dinner.

Their dinner is simple and hot and Ryoma had cooked it because Wakashi burns his toast and eggs. They have pasta stirred with olive oil and basil and he threw in some cold white cheese and sliced tomatoes on the side and everything tasted bland.

“Busy,” he replies, after a careful mouthful, scraping his plate. “Stuff to do.”

“You’re never busy,” Wakashi persists.

He shrugs, a surge of irritation passing over him. He is easily worked up these days, and he misses the times when he was young and nothing really bothered him.

“Are you writing?”

“No,” Ryoma snaps, and his fork drops to the floor. He does not bother to pick it up; Wakashi hands him a new one from across the table. “Don’t talk about that.”

“Okay.” Wakashi is good. He is good because: he is quiet, he does not talk about stupid topics, and he shuts up when Ryoma tells him to. Keigo has never done that, before or ever.

Ryoma does not apologize but he does stay for the night and lets Wakashi make popcorn and they watch horror movies together, Somewhere in the middle of the night Ryoma curls up to him and Wakashi wraps an arm around, like how Jiroh had done, only now Ryoma feels safer, warmer, and it is a body that does not stink of baby oil and lotion.

There is applied pressure on his forehead and it is soon gone. Ryoma rolls his eyes upwards and Wakashi’s lips are brushing against his hair. He tilts his head up but Wakashi sees this and quickly focuses his attention to the screen again.

“Sissy,” Ryoma says.

“You should call Atobe,” is what Wakashi replies.

Ryoma frowns at that but Wakashi has retracted away again, and voices on the screen fill their silence.

 

000

 

He is a translator now, sometimes a critic. His biography would state that he had scraped some awards, in which he has ‘contributed to the wealth and resources of Japanese literature’ and his Japanese translations of the English novels were ‘supreme and clear-cut, without losing the essence of intentions and nuances the original author wanted to convey.’ Whatever that meant.

 

[To translate a text is to immerse and suck out one’s self and to succumb to the author’s will. To read and interpret a text that is not your own; you will one day be devoured by it. ]

 

Is what his professors had once told him. To him it was just an occupation to pass the time, because he didn’t need money, Keigo would pay for him, if not out of love then out of remorse and guilt, because Keigo was stupid and rich and had too much compassion inside of him. He would have made a terrible King; he would have starved all his subjects to death because he cared too much and his end would be met with the guillotine.

It is fun sometimes though, when Keigo mentions a brilliant author no one has heard of during dinner, and while everyone is too busy either being polite with absent-minded nods (business associates) or being funny bastards (high school reunions), Ryoma is the one who would say, “Well yeah, but Barnes should have won that prize a long time ago, “or “Binet _is_ funny, but he sometimes generalizes too much, and that was his first novel.” And a simple toss, “You should work more on your criticisms, monkey king,” where he would resume eating and leave Keigo befuddled and amused, murmuring, “Well, who would have thought,” making such dinners bearable.

 

000

 

“When’s your next book coming out?”

They are in bed. Wakashi’s hands are soft and Ryoma likes to touch them, press upon them lightly.

“Dunno. It’s not _my_ book, anyhow. Don’t care.”

“I just never see you at work these days.”

“Haven’t you heard? The economy’s bad and translators are replaceable.” He stretches out, his limbs taut with tension and relaxes a moment later. The sheets feel cool under him.

Wakashi doesn’t speak. Ryoma wonders if this was how Keigo felt with Kabaji, all those years ago. There is solace in the fact that there exists a silent warmth within your dimension, and neither of you speak, but your presence floats and meanders.

Except that, unlike with Kabaji and Keigo, he wants something more.

“Why don’t we fuck?” he asks, after empty minutes of silence.

“Why do you think?”

“We’re lying in the same bed and we’re not sleeping. We’re not kids.” _Idiot_ , he adds silently and Wakashi hears that too.

“Maybe because you have Atobe.” Another name is purposefully omitted, and Ryoma is enwrapped in hate, for a brief second.

“Atobe has Akutagawa,” he snaps.

There is another brief pause and Wakashi says, more stiffly, “Maybe I’m not gay, Echizen.”

He sits up. He is tired, Like everything these days, it comes to him in a sudden hit of spasm, as if his emotions are not controllable, as if he must experience his range of empathy in brief spans of time. He is tired of silence, lack of warmth, of worlds he thought he understood and never had. Or: he is just being dramatic, but the food he cooked was horrible and he wanted it to turn up nicely. He should stop making only eggs for breakfast.

“I’m going,” he says, and plants his feet on the floor; his wrist is held captive.

“Wait,” and Wakashi sounds tired too, but that is not his business, “Ryoma. It’s complicated than that. Don’t be stubborn.”

 _Don’t be a child_ , is what he should mean, but Wakashi is too nice, sometimes, that Ryoma wants to hold him and hit him only to kiss him all the better again.

“Of course you’re not _gay_ , Hiyoshi.” He tugs his arm and his voice is dry and cold. “ _Heaven_ forbid.”

“Don’t play dramatics.”

“Don’t be like Atobe, you mean.”

“No, I mean, just don’t be dramatic. Don’t,” and in the darkness, Ryoma imagines those soft hands rubbing at tired eyes and trying to come up with words to console and comfort him. Wakashi thinks he is bad at making amends and he chooses his words with careful care. Wakashi is better than Keigo at making him feel human again. “Don’t go.” Today there are no fancy words strung together, but a hint of plea laces up stoic expressions. Ryoma stares out at the darkness.

“I’m sorry for the food,” he says, and that is the first thought coming up.

“What food?”

“Dinner. Pasta. It was overcooked.”

“Dinner?” and then realization. “That dinner was nine hours ago.”

“It bugged me, okay?”

Wakashi lets out a soft sigh and a laugh. “Okay. But it was fine.”

“Liar.”

“Anything you cook is fine. Better than I would have.”

“You cook good rice.”

“In Japan. When I have a rice cooker.”

“Will you cook for me when we go back?”

“Sure.” Wakashi does not persist with the specifics, _when is when_ , or any of the other stupid questions people would normally ask and Ryoma likes him all the more for that.

“If we can’t fuck,” he says, “Can we kiss?”

The sound he hears this time is a laugh, and bed sheets crumble under their hands. Wakashi’s smell of aftershave comes closer.

“Sure, why not,” he says, and their lips touch and they are soft, chaste.

 

000

 

Keigo is a light sleeper and Jiroh is not. So Ryoma creeps up to the side of Keigo’s bed, and pinches the nape of his neck lightly, and all too soon Keigo’s eyes flutter and open and he grumbles, “What?”

Ryoma comes up to his line of vision and Keigo’s eyes are more focused but his voice is still crammed with sleep and sullenness. “What, Ryoma,” he repeats, quieter, “It’s the middle of the night.”

Ryoma doesn’t answer to that; he merely straightens up and leaves the room, and he is sure that Keigo will follow. Soft footsteps made by slippers are soon heard, and he succeeds in leading Keigo out the door of the bedroom and into the hallway, where the light is dim and the moonlight pale and wane.

“Is there a point to this?” Keigo still looks a bit sulky, and his hair is mussed. “Or do you just enjoy waking people up and—”

Keigo talks too much. Ryoma walks up to him and feels the warmth of Keigo’s body, preserved by blankets and Jiroh. He kisses him, mouth-to-mouth; Keigo tastes of staleness, of bitter musk, and a faint trace of mint. He tastes like dreams and night, if that even makes sense.

Keigo opens his mouth; it is a reflex, and soon they are kissing, hands grappling, and Ryoma tilts his head and Keigo’s face crowds his vision.

Keigo looks puzzled when they part, but because he is Keigo he does not ask the absurdity of waking him up in the middle of the night only to kiss. “Hello to you, too,” he says carefully, “What brought this on?”

“I missed you,” he says; lies taste strange in his mouth. “We should fuck.”

He does not sugarcoat words.

(“I want to, Keigo,” Jiroh would whisper, a small smile and a blush, “I really, _really_ want to do it.” _Sex_ and _fuck_ are not spoken, and only ambiguous pronouns replace lust. Everything is sweet and chaste, as if the act of thrusting and moaning could ever be called sacred. Ryoma merely watched that time too; Keigo’s cock driving in and out of a red hole, slick and wet, Jiroh red facing and moaning who looks violated and crass, his blond curls plastered over his face. He didn’t bother to look at Keigo’s face. He is perched on the bed, observing. Keigo’s hand swallowed his own; it had clasped his captive, and fingernails dug at his palm, later, there would be crescent marks and even blood, because Keigo wore his nails long.

“Ryoma-chan.” Jiroh opened his eyes, slits, and Ryoma looked at him. Jiroh has not yet seen the hands. “Ryoma-chan, join us.”

Ryoma thought, savage, _fuck you, don’t call me by false titles, I could fuck you and strangle you and do everything Keigo is doing right now, you fucking faggot._ But he stayed silent, and Keigo did not rise to the jibe like other times and so that time, he stayed until the end.)

Keigo looks still, his slim contours are soft and wiry as he looks at Ryoma and he looks back. “Now?” he asks, and that is a logical question to ask, is it not? But he is impatient, logic does not work in the night.

“Yeah, now,” he says.

 

000

 

Keigo smiles and he looks dashing, beautiful even. He can’t think of possible descriptions; all he thinks of is fervor, how he would like to do something about the ache inside him, how he is gasping, his fingers blindly outstretched.

“I love you,” Keigo murmurs. Keigo’s voice is low and Ryoma likes low, husky voices ragged with smoke. He likes Keigo’s voice, it pleases him to hear a steady beat, a gravity that pins him down.

“I know,” he manages, and he can’t bear to say it, but he cannot bear not looking at this man either. “You should.”

“Don’t you have something you want to tell me?”

There are hands now. Keigo has beautiful hands to go with that face, and his fingertips are cold as they trace out his shirt, his palm sliding down and stroking his waist down to his hipbone. It is a slow, even movement and Ryoma lifts his hips to unbuckle his jeans. Keigo presses him down again.

“No,” Ryoma says. He still has his eyes open, so he can still observe Keigo looming. Keigo does not look disappointed, not yet.

“Common courtesy,” Keigo reminds him, and his voice is laden with amusement, “Surely you know. I love you, and then?”

“I wish,” Ryoma says, and here he succeeds in unfastening his belt and pulling down Keigo’s body towards him so that they were pressed together, “You would shut up and fuck me.”

Keigo’s eyes are impossibly close now and his lips hover with a smirk. Ryoma does not read into them because today he has decided he will not play mind games and that he will be fucked or be the one fucking he doesn’t care which. All he knows is that today there will be no soft declarations of love because what he wants is his carnal lust and desire to be fulfilled and those are the easiest of all to be granted nowadays.

“Perhaps we should wait for Jiroh,” Keigo drawls, and retracts his hand slowly. Ryoma doesn’t know what Keigo is thinking, and suddenly the room that had seemed so warm is now emitting a foreboding chill. “I’ve never seen you this eager before.”

He had, before: when there were no complications, but Keigo never talks about those days.

“No,” Ryoma snaps, too quick and in haste, and tries to even out his voice again, “I want you to fuck me.”

“You can fuck Jiroh.” Keigo’s eyes narrow now, and those hands are losing him.

“I can fuck him later.”

“Jiroh, you mean.”

“Yes,” he hisses, “Yes, Jiroh. I can fuck Jiroh later.”

“Or you could fuck Jiroh first.” Keigo is enjoying this. Ghost names that hover. Jiroh is sleeping in the other room now, like a baby, complete with the baby fragrance he always uses, cuddling with warmth he believes he is entitled to have.

“You want me wake him up?”

“It’s almost dawn. I know how the both of you are light sleepers.” The smirk does not fall off and looks sinister.

“I want you to fuck me now.”

Keigo never looks lost. Lost is not the word that he would use, but he falters. “You don’t,” he says, “We didn’t do _this_ for months.” Was censoring vulgarity contagious?

“I want to do it now!” Repetition of words makes him sound like a petulant child.

“You don’t. You’re just tired.” Keigo sighs and leans back, and he feels stupid, half naked and aroused. “I need a mood for this.”

Ryoma yanks him back to him and Keigo goes down, surprisingly easy. He snarls and lets himself up, reversing positions: Keigo is now on his back, and Ryoma pins him, and this feels strange, because he likes to be pinned and lazy, letting Keigo kiss him, touch him, caress him. Keigo’s smirk is no longer there and he looks impassive.

“I’ll suck you off,” he says, and his voice, was that his voice? It sounds grating and whiny. “You never told me you liked it that much.”

Keigo narrows his eyes, or, he imagines. “I like it just as much as anyone would.”

“You should see your face. I’ll take one for you, if you want.”

“Did you just wake me to be insulting?”

“No.” He still has Keigo beneath him, and while Keigo shifts, uneasy, he doesn’t actively throw him off. He is still wearing his robe. “I told you, I wanted sex.”

“You don’t like giving blowjobs.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t like getting them from you, then.”

“That’s awfully considerate of you,” he sneers.

Keigo stares back at him blandly. “Get off,” he says, quiet and menacing.

When he looks at Keigo sometimes, he has aged. There is still that tilt of his hair, ridiculous, fluffed-up hair and there are those eyes that were still grey and blue. Then he looks at the face: Keigo’s cheekbones are more prominent, his lips drier. His face has gotten sharper, as with time everything becomes hard and slick with no warmth. Those are the eyes that he is looking into right now: glassy plains of ice. He meets them and takes the step down. He loosens his grip and gets off the bed.

With that step he feels drained. He stares at the white walls enclosing them, his feet firmly planted back on the floor, as Keigo sits up. He feels those eyes upon him, but he doesn’t meet them. Instead he hears small feet trod up and down towards the hallway and up this room.

“I wish,” he says, “you’d tell me what you want sometimes.”

He leaves before Jiroh enters the room, with his sleepy soft eyes.

 

000

 

“Wakashi.” This is a phone call and he is on a payphone and he doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing in the middle of the afternoon. He is broke and tired and sad. He tries to light a cigarette. “Where are you?”

“At my aunt’s.” Silence. “Why?”

“When are you coming back?”

“By eight. Ryoma, why?”

He closes his eyes. He feels old and weary. Gravity and air presses down upon him. “Can I stay at you house?”

“Now?”

“Yeah, now. I know your code.” Pause. “That okay?”

“…The house isn’t cleaned.”

“Fuck clean,” he says, louder, and it must have been heard over the plastic walls, because people walking by now look at him, unnerved, “I don’t care about…” He trails off.

A sigh and voices are heard. Maybe some yelling. “You know how I don’t like it when everything’s impromptu.” He imagines Wakashi adjusting his glasses. “Is there anything wrong?”

“No, nothing. I just need to see you.”

“You saw me last night.”

“I know. I need to see you again.”

“And I’m not there.”

“Or your house. I need to see your house.”

“Off limits, Ryoma.”

“You gave me your code. What do you mean it’s off limits?”

“You haggled for it.”

“I _haggled_ for it?”

“I…” A pause, sigh, and Ryoma imagines Wakashi’s lips lighting a cigarette, even though Wakashi would never smoke. “Look, don’t call when you’re in a mood. I don’t want to fight.”

“I’m not looking for a fight.”

“You want a hug.” Why does everyone sound tired nowadays? He thinks that there is something in him that infects tiredness, a languid feeling of nonchalance and apathy. “I don’t…I can’t deal with that right now.”

“You’re at your aunt’s.”

“With the kids. In Brighton. It’s not in London.”

“I was thinking,” Ryoma juts in, “We should go to Paris.”

There is more silence and Ryoma has to laugh, a weary laugh. “I was just joking, Wakashi. Mada mada da ne.”

Wakashi answers, “Haven’t heard that in a long time.”

That slip comes off so easily that he freezes. It is a remnant phrase of the past that does not belong with him anymore. He stares at passengers, the red telephone booth across from him, buses, people: anything that would deviate him from his own reflection.

“Ryoma?”

“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, you’re right, I was being a dick. As always.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Have fun with the kids,” he says, and hangs up.

 

000

 

He comes home and eats a stale brioche. He searches for jam or butter but nothing is to be found, so he boils a cup of coffee instead and eats the bread, cold and thick.

He chews without appetite, an automatic endeavor to survive, geared towards human, basic needs.

Keigo comes home first; in his prim suit and neat tie, he looks as sharp and untouchable as ever, and Ryoma tries to picture him naked. It doesn’t arouse him.

Keigo looks at him, him eating the bread. “That’s been there for a week,” he says, scrunching his nose, “We could go out tonight, if you’re so hungry.”

Ryoma stares at him. Keigo is thin now: they are all so thin. Three people living under the same roof who all don’t know how to cook. He looks down at his own wrist and he could see the jutting bones of his hands and elbows. It is not a pretty sight.

“I’m not,” he says, and takes the finishing bite. “It’s fine.”

“Yes, well, I’m famished,” Keigo mutters, “And heaven knows Jiroh’s been whining about the monopoly of eggs.”

“They’re good for you,” Ryoma snipes, almost immediately.

“And they are so bland.” Keigo sighs, but it is an amused tolerance that he displays. “We were planning to go out anyhow. Where did you head off so early in the morning?”

So they do not discuss things: just as they do not discuss so many things. They do not discuss about last night because they have failed something somehow; they do not discuss Jiroh when he is not in the room; they do not discuss where this will lead; or, Keigo does not discuss the life he wants to have that may or may not include him. And so he does not discuss whether he wants another presence in his life that Ryoma once mistook to be theirs.

“A walk,” he says, and stares down at his wrists again.

“You should come for dinner. _You_ haven’t eaten much lately either.”

“Been busy.” And because this conversation is going nowhere, he makes a break for it. “And I have dinner plans.  Have fun with Jiroh.”

He leaves before he can get an answer.

 

Today is hot. Today is foggy. Today is brimming with people and tourists everywhere that Ryoma savagely wishes they would all die. He wishes that he could disappear and float away and be absorbed by nothing. He wishes he could be nothing so he could feel null.

 

He is not a fighter. Or, he used to be a fighter before he realized that it was fruitless and everything was meant to be disillusioned, and so he gave up. There was a time when he believed that by giving everything up he could gain everything, and that was what defined the Pinnacle of Perfection. But life was not tennis because tennis was made with two people and an obstacle. Life did not end with six sets and the endgame was not another person. Once Jiroh entered the picture, the delusion that tennis rules could be applied in life was void in its meaning. And so he cannot fight for something he does not understand.

He stands in the middle of Waterloo Bridge and see the trains pass and under, the Thames slowly flows. He stays there until the sun sets and the lights flicker on, one by one, until night sets in and people become blurred blackness.

Then he heads off.

 

000

 

A Eurostar from London to Paris is two hours and more and the tickets are ridiculously priced but he buys them anyway. He sits back and watches London submerge out of view and soon enough he is in the English Channel and he wonders if the tunnel will break due to water pressure and they will all drown and die.

A look out the glass: black, save for his face, and his face is hollow and gaunt and tired. He is always so tired these days. He stares out at the blackness some more and the last thing he sees is his face as he falls asleep.

His last book that he translated was two months ago. He shouldn’t be translating, not at this age, not when he is barely out of university, but for this he has Keigo and his connections to thank. If everything fails and he leaves and dies rotten and bitter, he can’t be bitter about the fact that Keigo had accepted his change of careers with grace and subjected him to highbrow publishing companies.

In his dream, they are in a forest and they are walking. Next moment: he is overturned and his hands are tied, his mouth is gagged and they are fucking. He cannot see Keigo’s face, but knows that it would be Keigo, because the way they fit so perfectly, and he tries to touch him but realize, looking down, his hands are tied. He tries to speak to untie him, but realize too, that his mouth is stuffed with a tasteless cloth. He makes a gagging sound, or, what he presumes is a sound. All dreams he have are silent.

Keigo looks up. It is a younger Keigo, Ryoma realizes instantly, because of his eyes. His eyes look so young and violent, his lips soft, and they curve into a smirk. A hand reaches out to him to caress him, but the caress turns to a grip, as Keigo grips his hair and drive into him further, deeper, and he thinks he is about to die. He is so hollow, even when he has Keigo inside him, and he tries to look down, but the hand prevents that. In the end, all he can see are those eyes, never leaving him, and they are surrounded by nothing but leaves and leaves of forestry.

 

He wakes up and looks out. The sky is blue again and he is in Paris. He thinks about the dream for a minute and concludes that he is just tired and needs sex. He does not think about those eyes and as soon as he gets off the train, he forgets about the dream.

 

000

 

Wakashi calls him on his phone, but he does not answer. He gets a dingy hotel near the Marais and looks down at the cobblestones that were old and paved and imperfect.

Fuck it, he thinks. He’s in Paris and he should walk around. So he walks and ignores a second call from Keigo, and a third one from an unknown number he knows to be Jiroh’s. He walks along the Seine and lights up a smoke, exhaling while looking at the illuminating lights of Notre Dame. The first smoke runs out and he lights up another one. The people pass him by: he is leaning against a bench and watching, waiting.

Finally, his phone rings again, and this time he picks up. It is Wakashi again.

“Where are you?” There is no hellos, no hi, how are you, I’m fine, and you.

“Hi.” At least he should be cordial, if anything, in a relationship he wants to treasure.

“Fuck hellos. Where the hell are you?”

Ryoma stares at the church and the bridge he is standing on. He doesn’t answer before he takes a long drag and blows out. “Don’t curse, Wakashi. It’s not like you.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Wakashi is angry, he knows, from the clipped tone he uses. This is the first time he hears it though: Wakashi is never mad at him, because Wakashi is good and solid, but Ryoma sometimes forget Wakashi is human who has human needs and a heart. “What the hell am I going to do, then? First you come over after two weeks, and then you call me up on my phone when I’m out of town. You never call. And now I try to reach you and they tell me your line is international. How am I supposed to react?”

It is a ramble, words, commitments. His eyes blur and haze. “Paris,” he says, giving the only answer he is capable of giving. “I’m in Paris, I told you.”

“You didn’t tell me. You said you wanted to go together.”

“You were in Brighton.”

“Fuck, Ryoma,” Wakashi snaps, and his name sounds bitter, “Do I need to throw away my life for your whims?”

 _Don’t be a child,_ he hears a hallucination, from a different voice with the same intonations. He swallows bile. The church is yellow and ghastly.

“No,” he says, tired. He isn’t even going to start. “If you want, we can end this. That’s not what I want at all.”

When he goes back to London, he resolves to end everything. Wakashi will be only the first step. He will end writing, Keigo, Jiroh, London. He will fly back to New York or Tokyo and mope around his mother’s house, feeling like a failure.

There is silence on the other line and a sharp intake of breath, then a dial. Wakashi had hung up.

Ryoma stores the phone away inside his pocket after he turns it off. There are no more calls he wants to take.

 

000

 

The next day, he sets off towards the church again, but steers towards the other direction across the street and enters a small bookshop.

Wakashi is there.

Ryoma thinks he is imagining things, but there is Wakashi, looking as if he hadn’t slept all night, with his dark eyes and pale face and light hair. Wakashi, looking haggled as he flips through a book near the counter, where he has a good lookout for the customers coming in.

Their eyes meet and Ryoma can only stare.

Wakashi grimaces, then offers a drained smile. “There’s not a lot of places a writer can roam around in this city,” he says.

“Translator,” Ryoma corrects him, automatic, but his feet are already heading to Wakashi and his weary figure. They stand closely together for a second before Ryoma lets his body enwrap the other, his arms tightening around Wakashi and his London air.

It is a good thing that it was a weekday, he thinks, so that people do not drown them.

“You’re not a whim,” he says against a solid shoulder, and Wakashi’s arms come around him and tighten in response.

 

000

 

Ryoma is at first embarrassed by the state where his hotel is, then realizes that Wakashi is not Keigo, and that their hands are still intertwined.

“When did you come?” he asks.

“Last night, as soon as you turned off your phone,” Wakashi says, no rebuke in his voice, “I had to beg the bookstore to take me up their attic.”

Ryoma laughs. He feels giddy, almost. Wakashi looks at him and gives him a small smile, and after a moment’s pause, leans over to give him a small kiss near his lips. Ryoma leans back and gives him a proper one, on the lips without tongue. Wakashi turns a faint red and Ryoma rolls his eyes and laughs again.

“I hardly ever hear you laugh.” Wakashi does not let his hand go even when they cross the streets, even when their palms become sweaty. “You should do it more often.”

Ryoma does not quip back that London is not a city for laughing, that he cannot even smile in London. Instead he says, “We should buy a French cookbook. I could cook something there.”

Wakashi frowns. He looks worried and Ryoma bites back another smile and looks away.

This is almost normal.

They walk along the Seine again, this time he does not feel so empty and probing. They wander around and out the gardens, sit alongside the banks and share a baguette and Ryoma has black coffee, which he drinks and he watches the other boy. Wakashi is carefully tearing out half of his baguette and chewing thoughtfully. His own baguette is poorly neglected. Wakashi swallows his mouthful and tears another piece, but this time offers it to Ryoma.

He smirks and does not take it by hand but opens his mouth, and after a sigh, Wakashi obliges.

They sit by the river until the sun sets, and then they head back to the hotel again, their cheeks red and Wakashi’s arm wrapped around him.

 

000

 

Wakashi’s touchs are light.

He tries to think why they might be light, but then he soon, he can’t think. They are kissing: Wakashi’s tongue is warm and melting as they probe gently inside his mouth, carefully snaking in and sliding across the roof of his mouth and around his gums. He thinks he must reek of smoke and it would be disgusting, but Wakashi lets his tongue twist and adjoin with his own and soon their tongues are mingled together, lazy. Wakashi tastes of coffee and bread. He tastes of null.

“I should give up smoking,” he says, the moment they part. Wakashi gives him another small peck for that, this time, not embarrassed to give it on the lips.

“Hm?”

“Smoking.” He gives a shrug. “I must taste revolting.”

Wakashi mocks his shrug and smirks. A smirk on Wakashi is normal; or, it should be normal. He looks younger now, because he is carefree and light. He is able to crack jokes instead of staying silent and passing him a spoon.

He feels happy that they will never be Kabaji and Keigo.

“I don’t it’ll change anything,” he says, “You can’t get rid of that.”

“The smoke?” Ryoma can’t help asking.

Wakashi kisses him again and this time Ryoma opens his mouth and laughs.

“Yes, the smoke,” Wakashi says, when they part.

Ryoma rolls his eyes. “That’s stupid.”

Wakashi pushes him back in reply, and Ryoma gives out a small yelp as he falls back. He lands on the small bed, a bed that is barely fit for two, and he falls ungracefully, his arms spread wide across the mattress. Wakashi climbs on top of him and lets his legs trap him. Above, looming, Wakashi still does not look threatening. But his face is dimmed because the light counter reflects him, and all he can see is a shadow of the pale face.

Wakashi’s hand comes and rests on his cheek. It strokes his skin, and Ryoma thinks at how rough that hand is, a hand that had weathered through tennis and judo and Hyotei. Thinking this, he feels tired.

“We’re not going to fuck,” Wakashi says, “If you don’t want to.”

His voice is serious and low, and the stroking doesn’t stop. Ryoma bites back, _of course I want to, I always wanted to_ , and looks up at him, Wakashi with sharp eyes and light hair and a straight mouth. He looks at the ceiling beyond Wakashi and thinks how ugly the white is in the room. Keigo would have been appalled. He knows that he wants to but at the same time, he knows that he does not. He doesn’t want the feel of entanglements and the complications following this, but even thinking upon that trail of thoughts, he knows that there will always be complications and it would have nothing to do with fucking. So he stands by his original answer.

He replies quietly, “I want to.”

Wakashi takes off his shirt first; his jeans are gone, and Ryoma sits up, tries too doff off his own clothes, but Wakashi’s hand prevents him; it stays on his chest and makes him lie down again, and with a wry smile Wakashi, everything gone save his underwear, doffs off his shirt and jeans for him. Ryoma stays docile, silent, as his buckle unclasps, his jeans rolling down, and soon he is cold in the legs. Wakashi climbs over him warms them up.

They kiss again and Ryoma wonders what Wakashi likes: if he likes a docile partner, or a raging one, and wonders which role he should play. He feels uncomfortable.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks, and those words suddenly give him a deja-vu, they scare him; he had said those same words, a long time ago.

Wakashi buries his face at the crook of his neck and licks his neck, kisses it in small steps and a small bite. “Anything you want,” he says, and the answer is different from the one he had once been given, so he relaxes.

Wakashi’s fingers are longer than Keigo’s. When they enter him, they probe deep, and they hurt at first. He closed his eyes and shifts, but they still feel uncomfortable. He is stuck and he opens his mouth and gasps.

“Alright?” Wakashi murmurs from above.

“Hurts,” he manages, and shifts, but it does him no good. Wakashi leans over again and Ryoma feels more kisses on the side of his neck; Wakashi’s other hand comes to play with his bud and they move towards his cock.

“We need more lotion,” he tries to laugh it off, but winces instead. Wakashi’s hand strokes him with firm, repeated strokes, and the fingers do there best to open him up and find the spot.

When they do find it, he opens his eyes and arches, his hand grappling blindly in the air, and Wakashi holds it down, they fingers intertwining, and soon Wakashi is inside him, moving above him, slowly at first and then later, his tranquil face red and grunting, gasping; their hands rub together. Wakashi’s hand grinds his own down.

He meets Wakashi’s eyes. Wakashi’s face contorts when he is fucking and his eyes narrow but they do not sharpen. Wakashi offers him a small smile that must cost him everything and he moves, and Ryoma in turn matches with a rhythm that is good for the both of them.

Wakashi comes first, and he comes soon after, and Wakashi collapses onto him, grimaces. He mutters an apology and rolls over, but not quite; the bed is too small. He lies sideways and lets his arm enclose Ryoma’s back for a moment before he stands up and walks towards the bin. Ryoma sees him unroll the condom and trash it neatly, where it should belong. It brings out a laugh out of him.

Wakashi gives him a quizzical look when he comes back to the bed. “What?”

Ryoma shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says. He has never seen a condom thrown away where it should have been trashed.

For the rest of the night, they stay enwrapped together, and sleep comes to him easily.

 

000

Keigo is inside the apartment when he enters, but he does not see Jiroh.

The moment he sees him, Ryoma knows that Keigo is angry. Keigo’s eyes are hard and his lips are white. He is also holding a cup of coffee that must taste terrible, because Keigo does not know how to make coffee. Keigo, in fact, does not know how to do a lot of things.

Keigo does not speak at first. His eyes that roam Ryoma are hostile. They scan him for weaknesses and he feels like an enemy.

“I was in Paris,” he says, before Keigo can ask anything. He does not give Keigo the time to hone attacks.

“Indeed,” Keigo answers back, clipped.

Ryoma walks over to the counter and boils water. He needs tea, and he needs sleep. He is sore and tired, something that he mistook for contentment before he entered this house and saw Keigo.

“Is that all?” Keigo says, when he does not expand on his initiative. “You were gone for the weekend with no note and your phone was off. And all you have to say is that you were in Paris?”

He rubs his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says, and a moment later he thinks, that is such a useless word because he does not mean it at all.

“I’m sure.” There is another edge to Keigo’s voice, and he hates the sound. Keigo’s voice is clean and crisp that lacks warmth. He misses soft whispers and murmurs, and he cannot get them here. He thinks, I should leave. But he needs tea first, and he needs sleep so he can forget about useless hopes.

“Yeah, I am.” He turns around to face Keigo after he made his tea. He had taken his time and how appraises Keigo as Keigo is glaring at him: Keigo is clad in his white shirt and black robe, and his silhouette is sharp where the sunrays do not hit him. He sighs. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

He wishes Keigo was a villain. He wishes that, Keigo would narrow his eyes and hit Ryoma or throw him against the counter and plunder him. He wishes that Keigo would not be composed and say hurtful things, so that he may have a justification to hate Keigo, to make himself believe that yes, he deserved better than the games that Keigo played and the rules that he brought upon this house. The absence of Keigo made him contort Keigo into a monster, with references to Keigo at his worst, with his sneers and mockery. But that is not Keigo, because there must be a reason why he is still there.

Keigo looks at him and his gaze is not hostile anymore, they just look empty.

“I was worried,” he says quietly.

“Well, I’m not dead,” Ryoma quips, shrugging. “So.”

Keigo looks at him, almost sad now, and he feels a tinge of something. It is not guilt, because he does not need guilt, but it is something more complicated. He will not delve into complications.

“We went out for dinner to a nice place in Kensington,” Keigo says, “When you weren’t here. Did you eat anything yet?”

Before Ryoma could answer Keigo goes on, “You look tired. We can go out later, if you want.”

He should say _, I’m not hungry, you go on with Jiroh, who is we._ In the end he only asks the last part of his thoughts. “Is Jiroh coming?”

Keigo looks at him again. This time it is an explicit tiredness. It is a look of defeat and it does not suit Keigo.

“No,” he says, “No. Jiroh isn’t. He’s visiting his grandmother.”

 

000

 

Togetherness comes in a long time. It comes off awkward, when he does not go with Jiroh and Keigo in public, and when they do, he opts to follow behind while Jiroh snakes arms around Keigo and Keigo discreetly tries to fend the blond man off, muttering, “Not in public Jiroh,” with a smile so that Jiroh would know it to be a joke. Thinking such thoughts makes him morbid again and he wonders if Keigo is also thinking of Jiroh and a hollow entity. He is wondering if he is only a half or even less of Keigo’s thoughts when Keigo takes his hand and they walk together, hand in hand, across Hyde Park.

He throws Keigo a sharp look. Keigo is careful about public etiquette: he had always tolerated Jiroh’s hands and hugs with a wince and a sigh and a laugh in public, but all his lust and leers were reserved for the bedroom.

Keigo meets his eyes and offers him a wry smile. “You look disgusted,” he says.

“No,” Ryoma says, after a beat, “Just…surprised.”

“We don’t have to.”

He wonders if Keigo is implying something more than the hand. He turns away. “It’s fine,” he says. Keigo’s fingers curl around his tightly once, then softens again.

He goes back to the wry smile and realizes that yes, it was a smile and not a sharp smirk.

 _Damn you_ , he curses Keigo.

The restaurant they enter is not elegant but it is warm and cozy, and Keigo draws out his chair for him and he does not snipe out that he is not a girl but accepts it quietly. They order steak and salad and salmon, and with a moment’s hesitation Keigo also orders wine and two glasses.

Keigo’s tastes have changed with Jiroh, he thinks, because looking around, this is not a place he would have imagined Keigo to enter. He would have gone to Gordon Ramsay or Four Seasons, not some nameless restaurant in the middle of a well-respected but quiet neighborhood.

“I never hear you talk about your work nowadays,” Keigo says, before the food arrives.

They never talk, nowadays, but Ryoma doesn’t point that out. He rolls his eyes. “It’s boring,” he dismisses, then adds, “We never talk about your work.”

“Boring,” Keigo counters dryly and raises an eyebrow. “I thought you liked your work.”

“Tolerate,” Ryoma corrects, “I would rather if I didn’t do anything.”

“And become a parasite?”

“Yeah, that. You could afford it.” He expects Keigo to add, like Jiroh, and the spell would be broken between the two of them, but Keigo does not mention Jiroh’s name. Instead Keigo rolls his eyes and that gesture makes him look younger.

“I don’t appreciate being taken advantage of,” he says.

Ryome gives him a sweet smile. “I’d make up for it,” he says, “in other ways.”

Keigo shakes his head and the food arrives.

They eat and they seldom talk, but when the do it is cordial and almost like old times. Ryoma finches away a piece of steak and Keigo sighs and cut up a slice for him, a more generous slice, and Ryoma offers him salmon which Keigo declines. They have cold wine and it tastes sweet and god, even though he doesn’t drink. He doesn’t feel an urge to stand up and go out for a smoke, and feels happy. Keigo looks softer in the light and at this angle, and after, when the meal is over and there is nothing but Keigo’s eyes to look at, he feels awful and horrible and judges this explicit glumness to be guilt. Yes, this was guilt because it was so blatant.

“I hope that might have fattened you up some,” Keigo remarks after the bill.

Ryoma hums and after Keigo pays for the bill, leads the way out of the exit and opens the door for Keigo with a mock-bow, which Keigo accepts with a roll of his eyes, and they head out into the streets. They have walked along the streets and had not taken Keigo’s car, and he only comes upon this fact when he looks up at the sky after the first drops of rain.

“Oh,” Keigo says, “I didn’t think it would rain.”

“I didn’t think we would walk,” Ryoma says. Keigo shoots him a puzzled look, but he doesn’t expand upon his thoughts.

“Well, I suppose we should take a bath once we get inside.” Keigo is already resigned to this fact, the act of walking in the rain, instead of throwing a fuss about how his hair would get wet. There are no cabs running past this particular street, it is true, but Keigo would have made more of a hassle in walking. Instead he walks quietly, hands in his pockets, and Ryoma follows, alongside, food and something else weighed upon him.

Jiroh had changed Keigo too much. He was not like this, and Ryoma does not know which one he prefers, the Keigo that would not change despite his best intentions, or the Keigo that had changed under the softer hands of Jiroh. He wonders what he is doing wrong, if he is only good for mockery and sex, and these days, not even that.

His hands come up to brush away the rain.

“Jiroh wants to go to Madrid one weekend,” Keigo says. He breaks the silence and their exclusiveness. “Once my project is done. Sometime this month.”

“Have fun,” Ryoma says. His current thoughts suddenly make him brusque. Keigo gives him a look: not the soft look or the amused look, but again, back to the sharp look.

“You’ll be coming, of course.”

“No,” he says, “Of course I’m not going.”

“You went to Paris,” Keigo points out.

“And?”

“So I’m assuming you’re not averse to traveling.”

“I’m not,” Ryoma confirms.

“Jiroh wants to go.”

“With you.”

“With the both of us.” Keigo’s voice is sharp and a snap. He stops in his tracks but Ryoma doesn’t, so Keigo grabs his wrist and makes him face Keigo with a yank. Ryoma suppresses a wince.

“The both of us,” Keigo repeats with a snap, “What is wrong with you?”

Ryoma stares. What is wrong with him? He thinks everything is fine with him. He thinks that he is the normal one, that he is entitled to be normal, if not anything, He thinks that being normal means having an affair when life gets tiring and when people don’t make sense, he thinks that normal means trying to understand people. He doesn’t think normal means sharing a person whom he thought he was entitled to monopolize. But he does not articulate abstract grievances. He glares.

“Nothing,” he says, “I’m just tired. I don’t really like traveling.”

“You liked it enough to go to Paris,” Keigo sneers.

Ryoma deflates inside. “Can we not make a scene?” he says, “Let go of my arm.”

Keigo stares at him, looking as if he wants to say something. And Ryoma understands: that Keigo knows, perhaps not Wakashi, but he knows enough, and Ryoma knows that Keigo knows, and with their eyes holding each other steadily, each will not budge until one of them breaks. Another mind game, and that thought makes him weary; he is tired of mind games and secrecy and signals. He wants explosion and closure.

Keigo lets go of his arm and his eyes drop to the ground. They resume their walking in silence and their distance is further apart.

 

000

 

They end up in Berlin.

Berlin is cold and foggy. He smells smoke and inhales smoke, and he even sniffs out some weed: harsh smells. They are not friendly.

“We should go up the TV Tower!” Jiroh is excited, like a kid. He is bouncing around, his smile radiant, brilliant, and his hand is clasped tightly with Keigo’s.

“Keigo! Let’s go up! It’s the tallest building in Berlin! It’s going to be awesome!”

Ryoma wonders if there’s something inside the candies in Germany that would make someone so hyperactive. He trails behind, debating whether he could manage to escape for a smoke or for a call. He decides texting, his hands pausing at each button, wondering what to send.

He snorts. He’s not a girl, is he? He types, _I miss you._

Satisfied, then not, he frowns and deletes the message. He retypes, _Berlin is boring_.

Better. He sends the revision, and then, after some brief hesitation, also sends another one, this time, his first message. A minute later, his phone beeps: _London isn’t better. Miss you too._

He hides a smile and looks up. Jiroh is far ahead, jumping across Alexanderplatz and back, and Keigo is standing still, looking at him. He is looking at him in a peculiar way.

“Tired?” he asks. He had seen him texting.

“Yeah,” he says. He waves his phone before putting it back into his pocket. “Agent wants to know when my next book’s coming out.”

“Ah.” Keigo offers him a twitch of a smile, and Ryoma irrationally thinks of Tezuka, long ago. He doesn’t know why, and is irritated at the sudden memory, and understands.

“Christ, monkey king,” he says, almost in disdain, “Don’t fake politeness, it’s dumb.”

Keigo drops the twitch and his face is impassive again. He is sorry he brought it up.

“You’re not having a good time,” he points out.

Ryoma huffs. “Yeah, well,” he says, “Told you I didn’t want to come.”

“At least put up a front about it,” Keigo snaps, “Jiroh’s been adamant that you enjoy yourself. You’re bringing him down.”

“I’m bringing him—” He stops. He sticks his hand in his pocket and fumbles for his cigarette box and takes out a stick with barely shaking fingers. Fuck, he’s suddenly so angry he can’t click on the light.

Keigo looks at him. “Ryoma,” he starts, but Ryoma ignores him, not talking until he has the smoke and the lighter and he takes a drag. Better. When he opens his mouth again, he does not continue his trail of thoughts. Instead, his voice is even and clear.

“You’re right,” he says. “As always. I’ll try to enjoy myself.” He walks away to Jiroh before Keigo can answer back.

Inside his pocket, he types furiously, random syllables that he hopes will convey, _I  miss you more, come here, I can’t bear this._

Of course, he does not send that.

 

000

 

The night after, his phone rings.

They are in the middle of dinner, but Ryoma sees the number and he stands up in the middle of the steak and in the middle of Jiroh’s talk, and Jiroh stops and looks at him, an awkward smile plaster on his face. “Alright, Ryoma-chan?” he asks.

Ryoma frowns, but nods. He excuses himself and ignores Keigo’s stare trailing after him and goes outside the night.

“You could warn me, y’know,” he says, the moment the coast is clear and the night coldness sweeps past him.

“Warn you?”

“I was in the middle of dinner.” He doesn’t care though, not really; after he says the words it sounds ridiculous and he grins. “Whatever, I was joking.”

“Well.” Wakashi’s low voice is not for the phone, it is fit for offline correspondence, “I’m in Berlin, and thought you might like a call.”

He stops to take a breath for a moment and the air he lets out is a cough. “What?” he manages.

“Shocking, I know,” Wakashi says dryly, “But hold it. I didn’t come to stalk you.”

“Too bad.” Already his mouth is hurting too much from grinning. “That’s more romantic.”

“You want romance now?”

He laughs. “Shut up, no. Don’t be dumb.” He says all this with a soft affection that he didn’t know that he was capable of these days. “Where are you?”

“Near Westend. My brother was visiting from Frankfurt, and thought, well, why not.”

“Frankfurt is still a good two hours away by plane, you know.”

“Yes, well.” Wakashi huffs, and Ryoma can’t read if it’s irritation or amusement. “I don’t hear you complaining.”

“I’m not.” He leans against the cement wall and looks up. There are no stars here, and the night is crisp and navy. “When do you want to see me? After your brother, of course.”

“Of course,” Wakashi counters, dry, “I think he’ll let me be off around noon tomorrow.”

“Noon,” he repeats. They had planned an excursion to Potsdam and it would have been sickeningly sweet. “That’s good.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” Ryoma stops and wonders if words are good enough, if they could be salvaged. In the end, he decides it is not. “G’night, then.”

“Good night.”

He holds on to the voice a moment longer and lets the words eat him. He takes out another smoke.

When he returns back to dinner, they have already cleared their plates and are having coffee. Keigo is holding Jiroh’s hand and they both look up when he comes in.

“Everything okay?” Jiroh asks nervously.

Ryoma gives him a small smile and sits down. Jiroh offers him his hand and Ryoma takes it.

“Yeah, thanks,” he says airily, and Jiroh smiles but Keigo doesn’t.

“That’s good,” he chirps.

Across, Keigo is giving him a blank stare, but when he looks straight at him, his lips move to form the twitch again.

 

000

 

That night, he kisses Jiroh.

Jiroh tastes of sugar and ice cream. Probably strawberries, he decides, when their mouths part. Keigo is in the shower, and they were alone before Jiroh had turned to him, serious for Jiroh, and whispered, “Everything is…is good, right? Ryoma-chan?” And this is where he had kissed the older man in response.

Jiroh gasps and blinks when they part, and gives him a wide smile. “You’re a good kisser,” he says, breathily, and Ryoma thinks he is mocking him. He sits back, and observes the blond.

“Thanks,” he says, his voice carefully blank. Jiroh laughs and stretches his arm out.   
“No, really,” he says, and suddenly, gone is the squeal, gone is the hyperactive voice that Ryoma hates, “Really. Ryoma-chan, you kiss really well. Come kiss me again.”

He realizes that he had never touched Jiroh, not like this. He had not skimmed over Jiroh’s ribs or held his hand, or touched those lips. But Jiroh is soft and malleable, and moans very nicely that it disgusts him.

Jiroh laughs again, when they part. He looks at Ryoma: he has brown eyes, and they look mischievous. “I’ll tell Keigo that I’m tired tonight,” he whispers near his ear, “If you want. You can have him tonight.”

Ryoma draws back, sharp, but Jiroh is still smiling.

“Why would I want that?” he says flatly. Jiroh continues to smile.

“I could,” he repeats, “Kei-chan doesn’t do it when I’m sleepy.”

“I don’t care,” Ryoma throws back. Jiroh tilts his head and contemplates him.

“You never kiss me, Ryoma-chan,” he says softly, after a pause, “There must be a reason behind it.”

He glares at the man. He hates him, suddenly. It was a whim, or curiosity, or yes, something perhaps that was more complex than what Jiroh was articulating, but nothing as simple as that.

“He isn’t property,” he snaps.

Jiroh does not deserve to smile like the world is ending. He does not have the right to look at him with pity and resignation.

“I love him too,” he says, “I hope you understand that.” And he touches Ryoma’s hand, and adds, “And of course, you.”

“Don’t,” he manages, and it is a hiss, “Don’t force yourself.”

Jiroh is still smiling that sad smile. “I love whatever he loves,” he repeats, and Ryoma bites back, _he doesn’t love me, not anymore._

They are still staring at each other when Keigo emerges out of the shower, and stops. He feels Keigo’s eyes on them, and it is a funny scene, where one is observing an observation.

“Is something wrong?” Keigo finally ventures out.

Jiroh is about to start, but Ryoma beats him to it. “No, nothing,” he says, “Just. I’m feeling a bit tired. Good night.” And he leans over and kisses Jiroh again and walks out of the room.

Alone, he reads Wakashi’s texts and replays their conversations and touches himself. He strokes his cock while his fingers clasp over his mouth, and when he comes he is absolutely silent.

 

000

 

At noon, he sees Wakashi.

Wakashi is well blended with Berlin and its grey sky. He is sharply dressed, neat, and he stands straight, and Ryoma can’t help but smirk as he sneaks up on him, but Wakashi turns around and they are face-to-face. His smirk turns into a scowl and Wakashi is the one smirking.

“It’ll be another decade before you can sneak up on me,” he says, pleased with himself, and holds out his hand. “Lunch?”

“No,” Ryoma snipes, but he takes the hand. It is warm, and he was freezing. “Later, food.”

“And now?”

Ryoma gives him another smirk and Wakashi frowns but follows him and gives him the address to the hotel. They walk in silence and take the U-bahn, walking through the quiet neighborhood and Ryoma mentally chooses the places that they would later stop by for dinner.

They enter Wakashi’s hotel: neat and clean, and Wakashi’s small luggage is closed and a double bed is already made. He doesn’t bother to survey around the room before he has Wakashi up the wall and is kissing him.   
“Wait,” Wakashi says, when they stop to breathe, “Wait. Just because we did it last time, doesn’t mean we have to do it again.” He takes a step back and Ryoma does the same. Wakashi adjusts his shirt and rakes his hair. “We can have tea. Or something. Talk.”

“You brought me back to your hotel to talk?” Ryoma can’t help but ask, almost mock, and Wakashi frowns a little. He is almost sorry about the sarcasm.

“No,” he says curtly, then corrects himself, “I mean. Yes, if that’s what you want. What I’m trying to say is, I don’t feel like….” Wakashi pauses, and falls silent. He doesn’t elaborate his thoughts and looks resigned to something. Ryoma hates that look. He’s seen it too many times.

“You don’t feel like…?” he presses.

Wakashi looks at him again and turns away. He sighs. “I just don’t want,” he conveys quietly, “you to make this into a dalliance. But I guess it’s too late for that.”

He looks resigned, and resignation is not a good look on Wakashi. He is always composed, ever since he had known him back when they were still snarling at each other. Resignation makes his eyes droop and it is a sad look. Ryoma doesn’t know what to say in the end, except, “This isn’t a dalliance.”

Wakashi smiles, defeated. “You’re not leaving Atobe,” he says, “And you’re with me. That leaves me in a pretty definite position, Ryoma.”

Ryoma understands. Or, he does his best to understand and sits down on the clean bed. It wrinkles under him and he wonders if he should feel sorry for that too.

“Do you want me to leave Keigo?” he says.

Wakashi gives him a flat look. “No,” he says, “And you won’t, even if I ask.”

“I’m asking you now,” Ryoma counters quietly.

He had steeled himself for this conversation for weeks now. Ever since he thought the outings with Wakashi to be too good to be true, ever since Paris, he thought that someday or the other, they would talk about this, but he still had not decided on a concrete answer.

“No,” Wakashi says miserably, “You’d only hate me later.”

Ryoma watches him. “Come sit down with me,” he says.

Wakashi hesitates, and then obeys. His feet strut silently across the carpeted floor and they sit side by side, and Ryoma lets his arms snake around warmth, and Wakashi leans against him. They fit together awkwardly, but that’s okay, he thinks.

“I can,” he says, muffled into Wakashi’s shoulder. “I will, if you want me to.”

Wakashi lets his arms close around him, and stays silent. Ryoma already knows the answer Wakashi is going to give, and he hates himself for it, because he had already known Wakashi’s answer before he even said his own words. He knows Wakashi by now: Wakashi is stable, he is too good sometimes that he makes Ryoma a monster. He hates himself that he cannot give Wakashi what Wakashi is too willingly ready to give.

“Thanks,” Wakashi says, “But I would rather see you happy.”

Happy is what Ryoma believes he has right now, and that is so very selfish of him. Ryoma squeezes, tight. He doesn’t let go for a long time.

When they do look at each other again, Wakashi smiles and bumps his forehead against his, says, “We can have that sex now,” and Ryoma forces up a smirk back and they do just that.

This is happiness, Ryoma believes, because this is the closest he feels something fill him.

But later, when they are worn out and tired, Ryoma rolls over and hold Wakahi’s hand. He is careful with it, plays with it; Wakashi only watches from the corner of his eye, feigning sleep.

“I will,” Ryoma says, “I will soon. But give me time.”

It is not a promise and Wakashi knows this and he answers with a weary smile. His hand folds over his own and Wakashi nods.

They fall asleep together and Ryoma stays the night. He misses the flight back to London.

 

000

 

We are miserable, he knows. Upon seeing Jiroh and his smile again, his meager contentment vanishes without a trace.

Jiroh is silent and he does not rebuke. Keigo’s eyes does all the accusing but even he, in the end, turns away with a simple, “We were worried.” And leaves it at that.

There is no singular form of a person anymore. There is Jiroh again and he is left floating from room to room and observing.

He is the observer again. He lounges on the sofa and finishes up his part of the manuscript and watches Jiroh. His soft curls are bouncing over his head that makes him look youthful, his pale skin, his laugh and smile, his, overall, how to frame it, he wonders, youthful, deceitful innocence.

Jiroh is not innocent, he tells himself firmly, his fingers jotting over notes in the margins of his writing, he is not a child or a bashful virgin.

He does not call Wakashi for days, and the days turn into weeks. He chews on his lips and console himself in the fact that he is busy with his work and Wakashi will be busy with his own life.

 

They are having dinner.

 

Jiroh announces, with an air of grandiose excitement, “I brought Chiense take-out!” as if he had not merely brought it in, but also invented the damn cuisine. Ryoma frowns and digs his eyes deeper into his manuscripts, but Jiroh sings loudly in his ear, “Ryoma-chan! I brought Chinese food!”

“I heard you the first time,” he is forced to mutter, and Jiroh hums, happy, as he goes in search of Keigo.

The waft of the spice and the sticky sweetness has already penetrated the kitchen. He is not hungry, not after two cups of coffee and three cans of Ponta, but Jiroh is waltzing into the kitchen again with Keigo in tow, and announces with gravity and cheer, “We’re going to eat. Real, solid food, and eat it here. _Ici._ Volia.”

Keigo throws Ryoma a wry look that conveys what he thinks of Jiroh’s attempts at French; the look is soon erased, when he fails to react to it by an appropriate response. _What was there to answer to?_ he thinks, irritated. He pulls back a chair and sits down and thinks of boiling another patch of coffee. Jiroh is unboxing the cartons and the steam is rising; all the while Jiroh is singing a song about hot food and boxes. Ryoma wishes the blond would stop being so happy all the fucking time.

“Hot, c’est chaud, n’est pas, Keigo?”

“Oui,” Keigo dutifully answers, “C’est chaud, et la cuisine a l'air délicieuse.”

“Vraiment?”

“Oui, mais la prochaine fois, nous devrions manger au restaurant.”

Jiroh pouts. “But we never do go out!” His face turns to Ryoma, still grimacing over his papers. “When will you work be done, Ryoma-chan? We should make a celebratory dinner. Or go out,” he adds hastily, seeing that making dinner under this particular roof would result in disastrous results.

Ryoma fixes him with a sullen look. “It’s still off,” he says. He shakes his head at the box of orange chicken Jiroh is offering him and gestures to the counter. “I’ll make some coffee.”

Jiroh puffs his cheeks and offers the box to Keigo, which Keigo takes a generous scoop. He proceeds to dump it on Ryoma’s empty plate.

He looks up. “Keigo,” he snaps.

Keigo looks at him. He only notices that Keigo is looking at him just because they have not seen each other for days, after he missed his flight from Berlin to London, after indirect facial gestures and few words, after Jiroh’s feeble interventions on their behalf, after hearing Keigo groan from walls in-between them. He is seeing Keigo’s eyes as they always were: blue-grey, grey, blue, crystal. They are regarding him with calm.

“You only drowned yourself in beverages today,” he says, “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Ryoma bites his lips. “Not hungry,” he says.

Jiroh is about to start up another chirping remark, but Keigo cuts him off. “Of course you’re hungry,” he says, more clipped. “You’re always hungry. That’s why you’re drinking those damned coffees all the time.”

“I—” He doesn’t know how to say that without coffee and Ponta these days he would collapse and sleep the day away. He feels lethargic and the world is bleak and grey because London skies will never clear up and the roads will always be paved with neat little rows of cobblestones. He scowls and takes the plate instead.

“Good boy,” Keigo says, sarcasm layered in his words delicately.

He chews the meat. It is tender and savory and sweet and he is hungry. Keigo is right, just as he is for most things. He takes another bite and feels somewhat warm and energized enough to say: “Is this a celebratory meal?”

Jiroh looks at him, quizzical (with a smile). “For what?”

He shrugs. He knows that Jiroh doesn’t know because Jiroh doesn’t know a lot of things these days besides his obsession with French after _his_ respite to Paris (which Jiroh somehow found out; with Wakashi, which Jiroh is never to find out) although Jiroh could have easily gone to Paris on a whim. He knows, from the way Keigo picks at his meat delicately as if it were poisoned, that he knows what he is about to say and lets a small smirk grace his lips.

“Keigo got a new deal today,” he says, “At his firm. The guy he hired, what was his name again?”

“Arnold,” Keigo says. He has a queer look about his eyes, but allows his face to morph into polite surprise. “I didn’t know you kept track of my business dealings.”

“I do if it makes front page.” Ryoma takes another bite of his meat. “Youngest heir, foreigner in London, dealing rose stock prices, etcetera.” He lets the smirk bloom next to Jiroh wide-eyed stare. “I didn’t read everything of course.”

“Of course,” Keigo echoes.

“But, you know. I thought this was it, but clearly.” His gaze lands on Jiroh. “Guess not.”

Jiroh looks abashed somewhat, which was, in all good intentions, Ryoma intended. “Oh,” Jiroh says, and he sounds small and pathetic, “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Keigo says. He lets a hand rest on Jiroh’s own, and he is undoubtedly shooting Ryoma a warning look, but he is too busy picking his meat apart.

“It does, of course it does,” Jiroh cries out, and his face is puckered up as if he is in a state of pain. Ryoma pokes at the meat harder. Jiroh should have gone to theater, he thinks, he would have made the audience cry over his antics. “Keigo, you should have said.”

“No matter,” Keigo repeats, this time a little impatient, “If it was a big deal, I would have said, I also say those things, don’t I?”

“Do you?” This time it’s him intruding into the consolation, and he opens his eyes wide and fake, and meets Keigo’s disapproving gaze with false astonishment. “You _used_ to, but I hardly see you inflate your ego these days. It’s very worrying.”

Keigo glares at him and his hand over Jiroh’s tightens. “Ryoma,” he says, warning.

He puts up the façade for a bit longer and drops it into a sneer. Jiroh has his head drooped, still in mourning.

“Keigo,” he whimpers, “I should have known.”

 _Why?_ Ryoma thinks, savage, disgusted, _you should read the fucking news instead of learning your French verbs._

Keigo brings Jiroh’s hand to his lips and kisses the tips of his fingers. Ryoma looks at the way his eyes soften and his lips gather, and the murmur, “It doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t.”

In another time, in another winter: They are standing alone, and he is cold and his fingers are freezing but he will not go inside, not yet. Keigo, next to him, for once silent, and he, standing to mourn for a man that he did not know how to mourn.

He had whispered: I’m so cold. He is not crying, He had already cried before, and now he is only tired and weary and in dire need of sleep. Keigo had not answered but his right hand was not cold anymore.

Your hand, Keigo said, they’re like ice.

And he had kissed them, first his thumb, his forefinger, down to his smallest. He had not seen, only fixed in the engravings bare in front of him, but he had felt hot breaths trickling down his skin.

 _What am I going to do_ , he had thought back then.

Now here he is, seeing a scene that he had felt once, and his heart does not constrict like he expects it to. It does not hurt, it does not make him stop to breathe because he is still breathing.

It merely licks out acid and ice and makes him want to think quite calmly at the ways he would like the pleasure of seeing Akutagawa Jiroh dead.

 

000

 

Wakashi does not call him and he does not, but they run into each other.

He blinks. “Oh.”

Wakashi visibly tenses up, and only relaxes after a moment. “Hi,” he says, and nods, curt. He is wired up in all the wrong ways and Ryoma frowns, trying to assess the reasons.

Before he does so, Wakashi is off again in the opposite direction, and he is forced to follow in across the bustling station that is Waterloo.

“Wakashi,” he says, and because Wakashi would only ignore him if he went mid-way, he yells, “Wakashi!”

People stare at him as he walks to a now halted and red Wakashi, who does not turn his back even as Ryoma comes nearer. He stops in front of the older man and sees Wakashi’s lips pressed tightly together and he is not looking none too happy at being called to attention.   
“You wouldn’t have stopped otherwise,” he says, meaning it as a half-hearted apology.

Wakashi lets out a small sneer. It is very subtle, but ugly nevertheless. “I,”he says under his breath, “don’t like scenes. You know this.”

Ryoma refrains from saying the obvious.

“Also,” he continues, “I don’t like surprises and delays. You’re doing the two most annoying things I find about people these days and being an obnoxious brat about it. So do tell, why in the world should I stop to have a bit of tea with you?”

He squares up and is about to set forth on his way again, but Ryoma snags his wrist.

“You could have called first,” he says, and frowns. “If that’s what’s got you in a huff.”

Wakashi avoids his eyes and glares at the wall across instead. “You told me off for calling you at dinner the other time,” he says, irritated and glum, “How am I supposed to know a good time?”

“You—che,” Ryoma says, and squeezes the captive wrist and lets out a puff of laughter. “You’re such a girl.”

Wakashi looks at him sullenly. “I am not,” he says with great dignity. Ryoma rolls his eyes.

“A convent nun, positively,” he says, “And you will be having that bit of tea with me right now.”

They do eventually get tea and by the time they are done with tea and everything else in between, they are in a hotel room and Ryoma is dying for a smoke but to warm to wriggle out of the embrace.

“I was just thinking tea,” Wakashi mumbles, his face hidden in the crook of Ryoma’s neck. The talking tickles his skin. “Just tea, and some talk.”

“You and your talk,” Ryoma says, and flicks Wakashi’s arm. “Next time, let’s go back to your place.”

“Are you going to cook for me again?”

Ryoma pretends to consider it. “No,” he says, cheerful. “Let’s order in.”

“Like what, Chinese?”

“Yeah. Yeah, exactly like Chinese.” And he rolls over and laughs in Wakashi’s shoulder, and even though Wakashi looks confused at the joke he doesn’t ask and merely pats Ryoma’s back.

“There, there,” he says.

 

000

 

Jiroh continues to talk about Paris.

“We should go to Paris,” he pesters, vowing to tour around European cities while he has the chance. He studies leaps and bounds of French and looks up places to go beyond the Eiffel Tower. He pouts and wheedles until even Keigo is wearing a frown and avoids Jiroh.

“We can’t just go to Paris,” Keigo says, one day after a lack of coffee. He normally reserved this particular tone for Ryoma, but today Jiroh is perched on the couch and looks desolate like a puppy.

“Not right now,” he says, “When we have time.”

Keigo gives Jiroh a dry look. “You’ve been saying this for the past month, you realize,” he says, “When some deals are tied up, and,” he gestures vaguely to Ryoma, who is pretending to be engrossed in his laptop screen, “when Ryoma’s book is finished. Then you can all go.”

Jiroh sticks his bottom lip out and wheedles, “But for a weekend—”

“You can go,” Ryoma finally cuts in, his voice flat, “It’s two hours by train and an hour by flight. If you want to go so badly.”

“But we all have to go!” Jiroh now zooms his target to him, and he is suddenly regretting his rash decision to butt in a debate that did not concern him at first. “It wouldn’t mean anything if we all don’t go! Right, Keigo?”

“If that’s what you want,” Keigo says wearily.

“I do,” Jiroh gives a firm nod, “And we will!”

Ryoma sighs and stands up to boil another cup of coffee. Jiroh follows him.

“You should have said that time,” Jiroh says now, “When you were going. We would have followed and volia! It would have been awesome!”

“I,” Ryoma stops and watches the water warily. “I wanted to go alone. It isn’t that hard.”

“Nooo,” Jiroh says, “But you were lonely there too, right?”

Ryoma turns to give Jiroh a look. Jiroh gives him a smile that is sweet and nice and lovely. “I don’t get lonely,” he tells Jiroh, and wonders if he should add more to that sentiment. But he shrugs and repeats, “At least, not really.”

“That’s very sob-wrecking,” Keigo remarks dryly from the living room, “Give me a cup too, will you?”

Ryoma frowns at him, which Keigo doesn’t see as he is reading the newspaper.

He adds two spoons of sugar into Keigo’s cup and shakes his head slightly when Jiroh looks, his mouth, “But Keigo doesn’t—oh.” Jiroh puts a finger over his lips and grins.

He presents the coffee to Keigo who accepts it with a weary resignation.

“Don’t think I know you poisoned my cup,” he says.

Ryoma blinks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. He takes his own cup at to his room and does not watch Keigo sigh and stand up to make a new cup.

He hears: “Paris isn’t going to change anything, Jiroh.”

He wonders if Jiroh really was stupid enough to think that.

He is reassured when he hears the answer: “Being here isn’t going to change anything either.”

Sometimes he will give Jiroh credit when it is due: when Jiroh does observe, and when Jiroh smile is in false bravado, when Jiroh, does, in spite of everything, understand certain words and lines. This will be one of those times.

 

000

 

He is out of money this month.

He sighs and counts the bills again. He thins his lips as he sits, cross-legged in the living room, his laptop perched on his lap as he assesses his account and narrows his eyes.

“Careful that you don’t go blind over that screen,” Keigo remarks as he passes. Jiroh is out for once, and they are alone: the first time since their conclusive London outing. Ryoma looks up from his screen.

Keigo is neat inside the house. His hair is soft and trimmed and he is always cleanly shaved. He is impeccable and he doesn’t like his eyes to settle on something so perfect. He narrows his eyes at Keigo instead.

Keigo returns the gaze evenly. “Is work not going well for you?” he says.

“No,” he says, curt, “Going fine and dandy. Whatever. Don’t ask me about work.” He returns back to the screen and the three-digit number that he must survive for this month has not changed yet.

“It’s a matter of etiquette,” Keigo points out, “Seeing as you take an interest on my work, I figured I should extend that same courtesy.”

“I only find out because the Times decided to make a huge hoot about it,” Ryoma sneers, “Are we still sore about that?”

“I was never sore. Why would I be?”

“Because,” he says, and stops there. He is not in the mood and position to fight, he is in the mood to mourn for his poverty.

Keigo raises an eyebrow and is still towering over him, standing in front of the sofa where he is currently sitting down. He looks up and meets those eyes again.

“What?” he says, “Go back to whatever it was you were doing. Manipulating stocks.”

Keigo contemplates him and his screen again. He is silent and Ryoma thinks Keigo will soon be gone and he might call Wakashi again, tell him that dinner is off because of his (fabricated) deadline. He could cook. He could learn how to cook, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

“I was just wondering,” Keigo says, and Ryoma jumps when Keigo is sitting next to him, his scent near, faint mint and jasmine, “Why in the world you would be a grouch on such a delightful Saturday morning.” He taps his blue-lit screen that held his numbers. “So this is the answer.” Keigo even curls up a small smirk. “How very banal.”

Ryoma rolls his eyes. “It isn’t banal if it’s a matter of survival,” he says, and slaps away the offending hand. “Go away, monkey king.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Keigo says, “I mean, as a matter of survival.”

“We had this conversation.” He sounds sharper than he intended to, but he doesn’t soften the blow. “And no, and no again. Seriously, go away.”

Keigo doesn’t. He doesn’t stands up but crosses his arms and looks somewhat petulant. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you’d only be logical,”  
 he says, with more patience than he would be currently feeling, “You aren’t using your logic here.”

“And we’re not.” He shuts his laptop. “I’m not going to use my logic and we’re not having this conversation.”

“You said to me not long ago you tolerated your job. You could quit.”

“I am awed by the memory capacity you have,” Ryoma says, obligingly sweet, “but that was a joke.”

“And the part about being a parasite?”

“Joke. I love my job and I love the money. So go away.”

“Technically,” Keigo says, and his voice is very flat and dry, “Your job is a farce, too. I don’t see why you wouldn’t accept my cash as well.”

 _He started it_ , Ryoma would later say, _he opened up the floodgates, it really isn’t my fault._

“Oh, I don’t know,” he answers slowly, deliberately, “That’s whoring out, isn’t it?”

Keigo presses his lips tight and his face steels. His grey eyes grow very, very cold.

“Don’t be difficult,” Keigo says, in the same slow tone. “Say what you have to say then. I’m getting tired of your roundabouts.”

They look at each other. It is like looking across the court from him from all those years long gone, Ryoma thinks.

He suppresses a grim smile. He will not say the name and let Keigo stew.

 

000

 

“So,” Oshitari says.

Ryoma ignores him and looks down at his menu.

Oshitari lets him do that. He is pleasant to be around, from the years that Ryoma has known him, if only he wasn’t Keigo’s friend and crony. He taps his finger, deciding on wine as well. It didn’t hurt to be too extravagant.

“So. Echizen. Or, well,” Oshitari coughs delicately, “Ryoma-kun. We’ve known each other quite awhile, haven’t we. Let’s dispense with some formalties, shall we?”

“I only accept flowery prose from Keigo,” Ryoma says to the menu, “So either you come to the point or I start insulting you.”

He hears a sigh. “You never stop becoming impossible.” Oshitari would even enact a disappointed face, if he knew that Ryoma was looking. He scowls down at the fine writing and declines to answer that. He orders steak and onions and lamb pie. Oshitari smiles like a true gentleman and does not comment on his food choices or the money it would entail.

“So,” he says again, and gives a small wave of his hand, “How is domestic life? I haven’t heard from dear Keigo in quite some time and thought to get the scoop from you.”

 _Liar_ , Ryoma thinks, _Keigo sent you to me to crack things out. As if I’m that stupid_. He affects a pleasant smile and answers back neatly, “He’s still fucking Jiroh, if that’s what you mean.”

A moment of silence. Oshitari blinks and adjusts his glasses. Ryoma wishes that he wouldn’t do that. “Well,” Oshitari says, “Do you object to it?”

“Oh no,” he says, “I’m liberal like that. Would you?”

“Would I?”

Ryoma doesn’t answer that.

He would like to say: there is nothing that you could say that I cannot say to Keigo, there is nothing that I could say that would make this okay, and there is nothing Keigo could say now to make this be bygones. Instead, the words that form inside him bubbles and dies as they float into his tongue and he opens his mouth.

Their silence is thick and Oshtari slowly loses his smile and watches him.

“You do know that, ah,” he finally says, and pauses. “Well. You do know that Atobe wouldn’t deliberately hurt you?”

“You make a terrible double agent,” he says dryly.

“I only speak the truth.” Oshitari stop when the food comes, and he does not try to pursue the conversation further.

 

000

 

“I want a cat,” he says over dinner.

Jiroh stops spooning out the stew and gives him a look that is curiously devoid of frivolousness. _He seems tired_ , he notes with some surprise. Jiroh’s brown eyes are droopy and sagging and his cheeks are smudged with a black streak. But at his words, Jiroh tilts his head and puffs his cheeks and his eyes come alive again.

“That’s a great idea!” he says cheerfully, and even his voice is alight again, and a musical note is in tune, “What about it, Kei-chan?”

Keigo also looks at him. He is spooning his own food without much appetite, and even though Jiroh has proved to be a better cook than Ryoma, he has not yet taken his first bite.

“It’s been awhile,” he says slowly, “Since you had a cat.”

He shrugs. “I thought,” he says, and stops. Jiroh watches him with a small smile that looks almost real as it was fond. “I thought a new one wouldn’t hurt,” he says, and takes his first bite of food. “Just a thought.” And he adds, as an afterthought, and because he does not want to be indebted, “This is good.”

“Is it?” Jiroh beams at him, and he flushes. He seems happy again, without a care in the world.

He misses warmth. Wakashi cannot share his bed every night, and these days he wants to feel that feeling of contentment and blankness every night, a curling of warm fire. He remembers, in his adolescence, how Karupin had always provided that, and how Keigo had, before.

“What breed has caught your fancy?”

Keigo looks at him, curious, bland, very faux and acted-out. Ryoma shrugs.

“A Himalayan.”

Jiroh squeals, “That would be awesome!” at the same time Keigo intervenes, “No.” It is cold and dismissive, immediate.

Jiroh turns to look at Keigo, his smile still plastered. “Why not, Kei-chan? I’d love a cat!”

“No.” And Keigo looks at him, glares, burns his eyes in rage and Ryoma is left to look innocuous and innocent, smiling.

“You don’t like cats?” Jiroh pouts, and he had caught on Keigo’s irritation but not his rage. Ryoma is utterly delighted. “It’s been a long time since Ryoma-chan asked some—“

“Jiroh,” Keigo snaps, hardly chancing a glance at Jiroh, his blue, blue eyes still digging holes in Ryoma’s own, “Shut up.”

Silence. Ryoma suppresses a laugh and he knows how Jiroh would look: aghast, shocked, white, pale. It is lovely. It is dreadful and damning, and it is all he can do to raise an eyebrow and shrug again. “It’s just a cat.”

Keigo looks at him until he doesn’t, and now they both look at Jiroh, who is, indeed, white and eyes open, his face of pure hurt and shock. It is so open, so readable, that Ryoma wonders how the blonde survived the world before Keigo.

Keigo does not apologize, however. His eyes turn back to Ryoma again and this time his mouth twists. He is about to say something ugly, and Ryoma steels himself for it.

“Who is going to breed it?” he asks now. “No one is devoted enough for such a task here, it seems. We can hardly feed ourselves.”

“I can,” he answers calmly, “I suggested it, didn’t I?”

Keigo smiles, a nasty, revolting smile. It is very polite and cruel. “Yes, and look how that worked out last time, do you remember?” he says, “Didn’t Karupin starve to death? Didn’t you, oh, let’s see, kill her with your own negligence?”

Ryoma stares. He forgets to breathe. His mind—his mind is a fucking white piece of blank.

(He did not expect this. He steeled himself for a cruel remark but he did not expect an accusation. He did not, not even when Atobe Keigo was being his most devious, his cruelest self, expect Keigo to attribute blame to him, not even in his most desperate moments. He expected dismissal, ignorance; he expected Keigo to turn to Jiroh and croon to his new petboy, he predicted another sneer and a drawl and all would be silence and blackness, but he did not expect Keigo of all people to tell him about death and faults and blame. Fuck Atobe. Fuck Atobe Keigo his fucked up righteousness where it didn’t belong. That wasn’t the whole story. That was never the whole story and he knew it.)

He cannot croak the screams inside his head. He can only stare and stare until his eyes have blurred, and he does not know how much time has passed, does not know how he should respond to this, not even when Jiroh stops licking his trivial wounds and call out to him, hesitantly, not even when Keigo composes himself and looks at him uncertainly, and most especially not when Keigo finally says his name, his name in that same tired tone and voice that was supposed to make amends.

“Ryoma,” he says.

It is his name. It was his tone, his voice that bespoke of the many times Keigo offered a retreat: _you are a broken human being and I am a selfish one, but I think we can still work, I will always give in first, but do not expect more from me_. It was the voice when his father died and he burned all the rackets and nets and screamed at the top of his lungs days later, it was also the same voice when he was too enwrapped in grief and horror with his life that he forgot he had a cat and forgot to feed her. When Karupin cried and mewled, he only registered that it was a cry he did not want to bother with. He shut her in his father’s den and threw himself off the staircase again and again. Keigo found him bruised and weak days later, when it was too late. Karupin had been found at the corner of the dark den, her skeletal ribs protruding and her eyes wide and leaking. Ryoma had forgotten to breathe then, his world swerving. Keigo had caught him, had said his name in the same tired voice.

“Ryoma,” that voice said, “We need to go to the hospital. You’re ill.”

He did not mention Karupin. Ryoma, back then, had loved him for it, desperately, unconditionally. When he came back from the hospital, Karupin was nowhere to be found and they never talked about it. Until now, in this unexpected and crass manner, Keigo has never spoke of what he thought about those weeks that followed.

Yes, he had killed his only cat. Yes, he was to blame. But no, Keigo did not get to blame him for that because he blamed his whole life for everything these days. Keigo did not get to blame him when he was fucking a glorious past in the name of Jiroh that no longer existed and when he was still playing captain and living in a fantasy world full of worshippers and tennis. Fuck him.

He speaks now. His voice is foreign and terrible. “That’s not fair,” he says, in this new voice. He cracks and the voice wobbles. It is rough and unrefined, it is not calculating, it is raw and angry and vulnerable. Keigo’s eyes widen. “You fucker, that’s not fucking fair.”

He stands up and without another word and retreats to his bedroom.

 

000

 

He locks himself up in his bedroom: a bed, a desk, a chair. His laptop. His mobile. He texts Wakashi: _I have a new book that’s due soon_. Adds and deletes _I miss you, come make me happy._ Wakashi texts back: _good luck. Tell me when it’s over._   He does not reply to that, but stares at the walls around him. He closes his eyes.

For days he does not leave his spot. His is very thirsty, very hungry, very numb. One time there is a knock on the door, timid and quiet, so he knows it is Jiroh. He ignores it. Then there is another knock, a firmer one this time, and he is still battered and strong enough to scream “Leave me the fuck alone, I will fucking kill you!” so that  footsteps retreats.

He is going mad. He does not scream or lose his cool. He only smirks and acts bored, he is supposed to be droll and biting, he is only supposed to snipe and be dumb. He is supposed to be rude and act as if no one matters.

(He is supposed to be a prodigy and play tennis.)

He does not do those things. Instead he thinks that he could die from this void, this nothingness, that he should have done this ages ago.

He sleeps.

 

000

 

The next time he awakes, he is hot and the door is ajar. He blinks his eyes groggily, and his left arm is heavy. He looks at it. A needle is pricked and an IV tube is hanging above him. Keigo is sitting in his chair. Their eyes meet.

He is pale, withdrawn. But he also does not look stricken and haggard. He is composed and blank, almost cold. His eyes are still blue in the dim light above them. Keigo leans over when he had begun to stir.

“You gave me a fright,” Keigo says. His voice is very calm, however, and his face is still a mask. “Were you attempting to starve yourself to death?”

“Yes,” he answers without really thinking. He swallows. His mouth is very dry and he licks his lips. Keigo reaches for water from the desk and hands it to him’ he involuntarily drinks and hates himself for it.

“That was stupid of you.”

“I do a lot of stupid things,” Ryoma snaps, “You don’t have to fucking deal with it.”

Keigo looks at him , really looks at him, and Ryoma glares back even though his eyes are tired and burning.

 

"Yes," Keigo says, slowly, "I don't suppose I really have to, do I?"

 

Ryoma tries a sneer. "That's what I've been telling you all these years."

 

Keigo is the first to look away. He rubs his hand in his face but he maintains his blank and slacking mouth. "I bought the cat," he says instead. "You can do the honors of naming him."

 

"I'll kill this one too, then," Ryoma spits out, and his eyes burn. He won't. He will not.

 

Keigo gives in, a small, self-deprecating laugh. "You know why I chose those words," he says wearily, and he is looking at the wall as he said it. "You know why, and it worked marvelously, too marvelously, I might add, and I owe you an apology." He smiles then, very bitter, very tired. "Aren't you glad? I play the villain in all your schemes and ruses, don't I?"

 

Ryoma bites his tongue. Through his teeth he manages, "Like I said, you don't have to. You never have to do anything."

 

"I know that," Keigo says, still maddeningly calm, still tired, composed, static. "I know all those things, don't treat me like I'm the idiot, Ryoma." Keigo stands up. "I am sorry, for what it's worth," Keigo says evenly, "there are some painkillers by the bedside. Call me if you need anything." He turns to go. Ryoma should let him, should never see him again.

 

Instead, with his IV-free hand, Ryoma reaches out and grasps Keigo's wrist. They are thinner, bonier, whiter. The grip is not very strong. He tries to swallow down the clogging in his throat as Keigo slowly turns to him, his face drawn.

 

"You should have told me," Ryoma barely whispers; stops, and tries again. "When. Back then, when you thought that. You should have told me then what you thought."

 

"I didn't," Keigo says, his voice tight. Ryoma is not looking at him. "I never blamed you for that. Stop jumping off to stupid trivia. You know I never did."

 

"I thought—"

 

"No," Keigo says, and his voice is firmer, and much tighter. It loses its cool edge. "I didn't. So stop attacking me over it when you know very well I did not. Is this another one of your dramatics? Are you doing to abuse yourself over this too?" The last bit is snappish and harried; it is a voice that Keigo never uses, not after the early days on the wake of the funeral. Keigo is begging.

 

"No," Ryoma says. He swallows; exhales. "No. I. I just had to make sure." He should let go of the hand. He should let Keigo retreat. "I didn't mean to starve."

 

"I'm sure of that."

 

"I just lost track of time."

 

"That happens to you quite often, I know."

 

"Don't go," Ryoma pleads. He meant it as a plea, but it comes out jarred and dull. It sounds like a crude and impolite command, but it works, and Atobe kneels down until they are eye-to-eye again. Keigo's blue eyes are very glassy and unblinking.

 

"Okay," Keigo says steadily, and for once, Ryoma can appreciate Keigo's superior acting skills.

 

000

 

 

The days pass after that: he wakes up better and the IV drip is gone, he can eat again and the new cat purrs at him, its fur sleek and soft. Ryoma pets it cautiously once and bites his lips, thinks inevitably about Karupin and her protruding ribs. The cat does not have a name yet and he is not yet comfortable giving it a persona. The cat is still an ‘it.’ He watches its soft paddings, its claws, hears the familiar purr.

He hurts all over.

Jiroh is quiet for the past few days, and he is brooding, almost. He had only once ventured into Ryoma’s room, and they had both smiled painfully at one another and Ryoma had even attempted to play polite, but in the end it was Jiroh who stepped back, his eyes brown and fallen, and there was no smile on his face.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he said, very quietly, “Ryoma—I. If you ever believe in anything I say. That’s the one thing you should.”

Ryoma doesn’t know what he means, doesn’t care to. Jiroh left before he could have said anything remotely polite, however, and Ryoma was left to think rather nastily (old habits, he thinks) _So does that mean you won’t be fucking Keigo anymore?_

But Keigo stops by his room every evening, after the sun sets, and as soon as Keigo enters the room he lies back on his bed and huddles in his bedcovers. It was almost nostalgic, thinking about the last time they did this, when Keigo had tended him and stayed as his pillar while he was left crumbling. They meet each other’s eyes and neither smile, but Keigo holds up a bag of soup he must have made his cronies buy and Ryoma scoots up from his bed and attempts to look parched and pale. Keigo hoists a small table and sets the food. They eat without words.

Keigo is older than when Ryoma had first met him; he is more jaded, sharper, crueler in some ways. He has grown up and had learned how to run an empire. In the process they had moved away from a country that had worshipped Keigo and into a foreign land that worshipped him less, if at all. Ryoma sometimes sees it in Keigo’s eyes, when they rest on Jiroh: Jiroh the golden sun and flower, who dozes off and smiles radiantly, Jiroh who allows Keigo to remember summer benches and frayed tennis nets. Jiroh, who wore the blue and white shirt of a school that Keigo helped lead.

In the end, that is the great and irreconcilable difference between him and that boy: Jiroh is something that Ryoma can never give him. It is something that Ryoma could not ask Keigo to give up.

“I’m feeling better now,” he says quietly in the silent room.

Keigo looks up. His eyes are grey and tired, but he nods and attempts a smile. It is better than the one that he and Jiroh have been passing to each other. “Good.”

Ryoma looks into those eyes. A younger boy, whom he once must have fallen in love with. Who had seen him burn nets and rackets and memories. He can try, at least, he thinks. He can, perhaps, move on.

“How was work?” he asks. That was a start.

 

000

 

It seems too good to last. He encloses himself in his room for two weeks. He thinks about Wakashi. He texts him then, tells him he was sick. Half-truths. He falls back on his lie about the book, and eventually he takes a photo of the new cat and sends it to the older boy.

 _I never liked cats, they shed too much_ , Wakashi sends back, _But he looks well groomed._

Ryoma blinks, surveys the cat. Rolls it over and scratches its belly while affirming that, yes, it was a male. He hadn’t really cared.

He finishes the last pages of his novel and he continues to stay silent, and joins Keigo and Jiroh for dinner soon after. They talk about random, inconsequential things and Jiroh’s chirping is less annoying, and Jiroh does not lean over to kiss Keigo anymore. He ceases to hear moans in the bedroom. He wonders why he is even keeping track of this new intercourse. He wonders if he even cares anymore.

He remembers his words to Wakashi: _I will, give me time._

Everything was implicit with them. Everything had always been, when it came to relationships and commitments, at least to him. They were confusing; confusing for a boy of twelve who had left nationals and entered a bigger world, even more confusing when he returned to that smaller world again when he was older. When he met old rivals and turned them into lovers. When his father died and he left his mother. There were no promises in anything.

He looks at them, Jiroh and Keigo together. He thinks that they could be happy together.

That was his plan, at least. Then they get a call.

Keigo’s cell rings and he picks it up without any fanfare. But the look on his face as the voice on the other line continues to speak; his face morphs into cold shock, cold denial, coldness, nothingness. It is the look when someone has died; Ryoma had seen that look in the mirror, many times.

Keigo hangs up. When he speaks, he does not look at Ryoma but Jiroh.

“Wakashi,” Keigo says softly, “He got hit by a car.”

 

000

 

He is dead inside.

Around him are people he used to know or people he had never seen; but this does not faze him, not even when he arrives there first besides family: before even Keigo, not when Jiroh follows soon after, wide-eyed, not even when the rest of past Hyotei glory and members trickle into the waiting room, waiting, one by one, waiting for a verdict that they cannot reverse.

They are not all here, of course, but some of them are, and they are overbearing and loud, they fill in the gaps of the ones who are still in Japan and will be taking the first flight out. _Why?_ Ryoma thinks, somewhere deep inside his mind, Why? This was a tennis team long disbanded. These were old school mates. This was only one school out of many.

( _Then what does that make you?_ His mind mocks, his mind black and sneering, _what does that make you, nothing but a sideliner, no one who matters._ He erases his thoughts, annihilate them.)

Mukahi is the first to exclaim his presence, his eyes red and mouth glum, snapping, “What are _you_ doing here?” as if he were scum.

Those are signs of grief: attack like a wounded animal. He should know; he had stood by through a funeral once, burying a man he thought would never die, and snapping at condolences. The waiting room transports him back to his father, his white, gaunt face, and in death he is not smiling. He had snapped, _I am fine,_ to anyone who would listen and he had not cried. If anything, he is proud of that.

But Wakashi does not deserve this hospital, because Wakashi never drank or smoked, he never did anything that was not sensible. He thinks, numb, that he should be the one to lie down in the bed with those white sheets, because it should not be Wakashi, it should not be him.

So it is not his fault if he stares at the red-haired evenly, it is not his fault if his voice is cold and menacing. But he does not speak, because to open his mouth is to open up a floodgate of events that he does not wish to start.

But Mukahi is insistent. “No, Atobe,” he says, and he turns to his former, silent captain, “Wakashi. What the fuck. What the fuck. And what is the brat doing here, he’s not—”

Grief is contagious. _He is not one of us_ , Mukahi is about to say. He is not part of our past. And he hates that past, a past that is riddled with nostalgia and glories and conquests. Wakashi had put that past behind him when he first took his hand. Wakashi had called him _Ryoma_ first before he could let go of the _Hiyoshi,_ he had first held his hand before examining his faded callouses. Besides him, Jiroh says quietly, “Gakuto. You should sit down.”

“He has no right to be here!” Mukahi prances around the room and Oshitari is half-hearted in his attempts to restrain his best friend and former partner, but Mukahi would not be consoled. “Wakashi is about to die! Die! And—”

“Gakuto,” Keigo says tiredly, “Shut up. Please.”

“Explain to me why he’s here then.” Grief needs a scapegoat, grief needs venting, it needs closure. “Atobe, you’re his keeper, explain the fuck to me why he’s fucking here.”

 _Hysteria_ , he notes. He sees the crying all too well and wonders why he cannot vent and shout like the rest of them. He wonders why his insides would only shrivel and wait for the inevitable, why he is so good at waiting.

He says, “We were fucking.” They are bland tones, dry, they do not convey anything and he is proud. He does not say that he loved him, because he had never said those words to Wakashi, not yet, and he knows muddled feelings are not love. He conveys only the facts and not the ambiguities of their relationships.

Mukahi stares at him. His eyes are hollow, and so is Oshitari’s, so is Keigo’s, so is Shisido’s and Ootori’s, everyone in the whole fucking room. They are all staring at him, ghost eyes, silent mouths. Keigo turns away first and rubs his hand over his eyes.

“Yes,” he says, “Okay. I suppose that explains that. Sit down, Mukahi.”

Mukahi sits.

 

 

000

 

The waiting is agony. All the while, he tries to think, miserably, of how Wakashi’s hands felt around him and he cannot. Or eyes. He only remembers the feeling and the warmth, only because he feels so cold now.

“I wondered,” Keigo breaks the silence, and it feels like there is only two of them in the room, “who it might have been.”

He answers dully, “Now you know.”

Keigo looks at him, bypassing Jiroh next to him. His face is horrible and old, and he is only twenty-five, Ryoma keeps reminding himself that. They are still young. They are still young enough to start afresh and burn everything to ashes.

“Why him?” Keigo asks, and he snaps.

“Why anyone?” he snarls, and almost shouts, but restrains himself in time, “Why Jiroh?” And Jiroh turns his head around and stares at him, wide-eyed, his name suddenly mentioned in long absence, “We’re not talking about this here. Fuck you, have some fucking manners, Atobe.”

Keigo falls silent again. He turns away.

Jiroh is about to say something, he knows, so unbelievably stupid, and he is just opening his mouth. Ryoma bares his teeth, but Keigo stops him. He rests a hand on Jiroh without looking at him and Jiroh deflates. His head hangs.

And after all this time, Keigo is the only one who can still read him.

But soon, Keigo retracts his hand and leaves Jiroh’s hand, alone, hanging. Jiroh looks up at him, confused, but Keigo does not assure the blond; he is lost in his own void and does not have the heart to console anyone.

 

000

 

The verdict is final. Ryoma knows it even before the doctor comes with weary eyes and his hands still.

“Well,” he says, and pauses. “Well.” The doctor takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. Ryoma sometimes wonders about surgeons: they have seen so many deaths and lives that they could not save. Does remorse surface up every time or do they perfect the act?

“I’m sorry,” the doctor says now, but no one is listening. No on has been listening since the doctor came in without a joyful outburst but a grey pallid shade, and their faces are lowered into a prayer that is meaningless.

Keigo stands up and is solemn. “I see,” he says, and the doctor repeats his apologies but Ryoma numbs it out. He has heard this line before, but back then, he had not been in the waiting room; his mother had fainted, he would later hear from Nanako. This room does not have the drama but Muhaki lowers his head even further and Oshitari clasps his hand.

Ryoma looks away.

 

000

 

The funeral comes and goes. He is too numb to think about how he had stood at the back of the processions, at the nods and shakes he received from Wakashi’s mother, who knew him.

“Ryoma-kun,” she says, and through tears she grips his hand like a lifeline. “I heard….so many things about you. From our boy.” Her voice is a harsh whisper and she is fragile as Wakashi was not. “He…he often talked about you.”

He nods, because he does not know what to say save for returning the grip, and Wakashi’s mother smiles a tearful smile, and Ryoma knows where Wakashi had gotten his soft smile.

Keigo is at the front of the processions. He had prepared a funeral speech and he reads it, but Ryoma does not listen. It would speak of stories that did not concern him, and it was a Wakashi that he did not know. This would be Keigo’s petty revenge, if Keigo was even capable of petty revenges.

 

000

 

Jiroh is carried off with Mukahi and Oshitari and he and Keigo make their way back to their flat. They do not speak and do not touch. Ryoma trails him into the house and is about to shut his door and sleep in peace when Keigo blocks him. He grabs a wrist.

“We need to talk,” Keigo says.

Ryoma looks at him. They are dressed in black and Keigo is tired and his eyes are weary. Nothing will come out of this.

“When we look human,” he says, “I need some sleep.”

Keigo’s grip squeezes. “After would be too late.”

Words will exist now or later, Ryoma wants to say, but before he can, Keigo steers him to the living room and it is devoid of normal cheer.

They sit across from each other and Keigo looks at him. Ryoma wonders what he sees.

“I knew about it,” Keigo finally says, “But I didn’t know who.”

He leans back. “We covered this,” he says, tired and hungry. Hungry, he thinks, he had not felt that feeling in such a long time. But he is empty, yes: at least, his body is empty and hollow of something.

“I don’t know where to begin.”

Ryoma tilts his head and stares at the ceiling. “Then don’t.”

“Were you planning to tell me?”

He shrugs. “I knew you knew.”

“And you were content with that?”

“Were you ever planning to tell me about Jiroh?” he snaps. He is snapping at the ceiling. It is white and dreary and is more pleasant to look at than a drab Keigo. “We can go back and forth with this.”

“So was that what Wakashi was?”

“Was what?”

“Revenge.”

Ryoma suppresses a laugh.  Or a choke, or a sound. It is not appropriate. “Can’t you be less self-centered at a time like this?”

“You’re not giving me much to go on.”

“I never planned to.” He opens his mouth and a sound still escapes him, he does not know what to categorize it as. “Did you plan to tell me about Jiroh?”

“Don’t bring Jiroh into this.”

“Don’t?” He sits back up again and glares at Keigo. Keigo looks back at him without friendly intent. Their eyes are set at a deadlock.

“No,” Ryoma says slowly, “No, as if Akutagawa had nothing to do with anything. God fucking forbid.”

“Wakashi happened regardless of him,” Keigo says.

“According to you, I just fucked him to get even with you,” Ryoma sneers back.

Keigo stays silent. They stay silent until Keigo tries again.

Keigo asks, “Did you love him?”

That is the question that makes him crack.

Ryoma laughs. And laughs. He laughs until Keigo looks a little scared, but he still laughs until he figures he is not really laughing, but he is screaming, and he feels unhinged, but it is okay, it is okay to feel this way, he consoles. This is grief, this is sadness, this is for all the times he stood stoic during his father’s death.

“Did I love him?” he says, laughing, “Did I _love_ him? Why is that the question? Why is that even a question?! Did I love him, god. Fuck, Keigo.” He tries to cover his mouth with his hands but the giggles won’t stop and he sits down. “Yes,” he gasps, “Yes. If you want the short answer, yes, I loved him, if that even matters. If it should even matter.”

Keigo is still and dead and he does not respond. When he does speak, it is a quiet, solemn voice, “No. I mean. I meant, did you love him the way I did Jiroh.”

Here Ryoma stops. He rubs his lips first: dry, chapped, tearing. He even tastes copper. He runs his fingers over his eyes next and they hurt. He does everything he can to not look at Keigo.

“Is there a difference?” he says, in the end, tired. “Is there even a difference?”

“Yes,” Keigo answers.

“Not to me there isn’t.” He wants to leave it at that, but Keigo is persistent.

“There is. Of course there is.”

Keigo will not explain to him again, but Ryoma knows. Jiroh is not Jiroh for Keigo but a past that Keigo could not relinquish. In that Jiroh is an idea. Akutagawa Jiroh is an idea that is not a person, and he is Hyotei, tennis, a past that in the end, Keigo could not get rid of. Jiroh loved Keigo because he was Atobe first before he was Keigo, because he was once a captain and a god, because he was once in the middle of the courts, hearing the chant _, Atobe, Atobe, Atobe_ , and he could have controlled the crowd with the snap of his fingers.

 _Keigo_ , he thinks wearily, _is a child._

But that child had also given that up for him, who had chosen a future without tennis, and who had left that past behind. Keigo had chose him over for a future that he was better suited for, and Ryoma recollects that, in the end, he was wrong. It wasn’t Jiroh who changed Keigo; it was him, every time, it had been him.

So Jiroh is not a person but an idea, and Keigo is asking whether Ryoma too, loves a past that he could have had. Keigo is asking is Ryome loved an idea, if he liked fucking his own ghosts.

He answers, tired but resolute, “No. But,” he adds, leaning his head against the wall, “In a different way, yes.”

Wakashi had hands that were gentle and that bore no memories. He had eyes that did not read him of his past mistakes. He was not present at Nanjiroh’s funeral, where, after every guest had gone, he had yelled to Keigo, who was the only one present until the end save for his mother, _He shouldn’t have died, this is fucked up, this is_ —and he had failed to connect his words and sentences. Wakashi had not seen him grit out that he will stop playing tennis, and he had not seen his eyes then; Wakashi had only seen him as a writer and translator, and he had seen Ryoma tired and worn out, but he had not seen Ryoma who was deranged and mad with grief. Only Keigo had seen that. Only Keigo had seen him thrown himself down countless stairs, had seen him floundering, had seen him at his bottomless worst.

Wakashi had not seen him break his racket and his tennis balls, and he was not there when Keigo helped him make a bonfire, and he had not seen those flames. He had not seen them when Ryoma had stonily seen the fire rise up, and Keigo had stood by him, back then, when there were only two.

He remembers the first time he met Jiroh again, so many years later.

He had not moved for days and weeks and months after the death, and his brain was in tatters. He would not eat and he would not speak. Grief grasped with him in all its grey and black, and he had moped in Tokyo, New York and London, where Keigo was dutifully fulfilling whatever he needed to fulfill.

One day he came with a blond man he remembered seeing somewhere and a name registered when Keigo said, “You remember Jiroh, don’t you? He needs a place to stay.”

And it had been natural, and he had not thought about it much until the next step had been established.

He will acknowledge this and only this: Keigo stood by his decisions and watched him destroy himself. He stood mute to the rage and unspoken hate that Ryoma unleashed in the weeks following a death and did not question his abilities about life and the future beyond them. Keigo did not expect anything of him; he held on, did not say ‘it is time to move on,’ he merely offered and hand and played the fucking hero.

But Keigo was not meant to be a martyr, he loved himself too much for that. He needed people to love him and that was where Jiroh came in, bright and lovable like Ryoma never could have been. Could never still be.

“Ryoma.” And he snaps out of his misery and musings, and still sees Keigo standing there, lost and worn, fatigued. “Ryoma,” he repeats, “I could give up Jiroh. If you’d stop this. If it’d make you stop.”

There they are again: codes and signals. There are more things than losing Jiroh here. Keigo is saying: _I love you, I love you enough to sacrifice my past._ Also, later, he will be saying, _I love you, but for how long I do not know. I don’t know later whether I will love you or my discarded past more, the past you forced me to give up. But for now, I love you, and that should be enough._

He reads all this and gives a weary smile of his own. “It doesn’t solve anything,” he says, “You can keep Jiroh. Or not. I love you, and that doesn’t solve anything.” Of the two of them, he is the blatant one, he is the crass one, he is willing to say words because words, he knows, are useless and forgotten.

Keigo knows this too, and he mimes his weary smile. It is a losing battle. “It might,” he says.

Ryoma almost laughs. It comes out as a huff. “What a useless predication,” he mocks, and closes his eyes. “Give me time. Give us time.”

Keigo steps forward and his arms are warm when they circle him. He doesn’t resist.

“Okay,” Keigo whispers.

 

000

 

Days pass. They pass each other without words in their hotel suites, a small nod not accompanied with a smile. He smokes and Keigo opens the windows—a silent rebuke, Ryoma thinks.

Where is Jiroh, he does not ask.

One day after that, he opens a old bottle of wine and he shakes the bottle at Keigo who is perched on the sofa staring out into space. He still does not ask about Jiroh but he corks open the bottle and tips it at the older boy.

Keigo raises an eyebrow at him. Ryoma shrugs.

“Maybe,” he says, and it is hard for him to say this, so soon after everything—he remembers Wakashi’s hair in that bookstore, the dingy hotel they entered, the streets they walked with their hands clasped—but he steels himself and speaks. “Maybe. We should go somewhere. Leave everything for a few days.”

Keigo does not speak to him at first, only studies him for a long time until the silence stretches. Ryoma is afraid to break eye-contact; they end up staring at each other.

They used to play matches against each other inside their heads once. He now thinks that this is not that different.

When Keigo opens his mouth, his voice is quiet, soft. He echoes ghost words. “That isn’t going to change anything.”

He can’t help it; his lips quirk. Perhaps Jiroh was right about some things, he thinks. This is a script, it was easier for him to say back, “Being here isn’t going to change anything either.”

Keigo’s lips mirror his own. He looks at Ryoma, at the wine bottle. He shrugs, and lifts himself up from the sofa.

“If that’s what you want,” he replies. He steps closer; Ryoma does not step back.

They are standing an inch apart; Ryoma can see the protruding of Keigo’s throat, the pale expose. He closes his eyes and lets himself fall slightly against Keigo’s shoulders. They smell of lavender and mist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Well, I do have an epilogue but that’s the main gist of this story.  
> This was such a bitch to write, just because I didn’t like where this was going. It was too gloomy and angst-y for my liking for no reason, and sometimes I think everything was very nihilistic. I wrote this at a very bad time in my life and I think the story was more to vent out my own feelings than anything else. Well, then I grew up, life passed and I was okay again, and suddenly I didn’t know what I wanted to say about this story.  
> I know WHAT I wanted to go with this, of course. I wanted to write a Ryoma who was incapable of growing up and dealing with his father’s death. In a world somewhere, I think this makes sense, that Ryoma would have defined himself by his father (even though Tezuka does shape him up and everything, I don’t think he’s a very good mentor) and his death would crush him to give up tennis. And I think that Keigo could stand by him, but Keigo is not self-sacrificing enough to only embrace other people’s pains. He needs to shine and be loved by everyone, including his lover. I think that was where Jiroh came in, as a very gaudy symbolism on my part—that he was this bright and sunny persona of a past they both could not go back at. Wow, sorry Jiroh, for making you into a symbol of everything Hyotei was ever good for.  
> Wakashi was…well, honestly, I like Hiyoshi and his aggravation. I also like how he is so willing to strive for the best, and I think that, plus his stoicism, was what would have appealed for Ryoma, who had been someone like that once. Also, there was another chapter where Hiyoshi and Ryoma interact right before I kill him off, but I thought that was unnecessary. I sometimes think Hiyoshi was unnecessary, except that I may have just make Ryoma into a pointless bastard.  
> Wow okay, longest author’s note ever. I’ll be back with my Hyotei Ryoma fics and my younger Keigo version AND I have a new fic that I have wrote (which is why I was so late updating….plot bunnies and muses grrr) plus all my other in-status fics (cringe) so thanks for all your patience. 
> 
>  
> 
> Reviews are always welcome, always always always :)


End file.
